The last time the winchesters saved the world
by raven1101
Summary: this story idea came to me after the show introduced rowena, before we knew who she was. Sam and Dean face their final big bad,


_This was written after I saw a convention where someone asked about destiel. It started out as a quick story about why I think Dean and Cas wouldn't get together, and it ended up this monstrosity. Be kind its my first attemp. :)_

The Last time the Winchesters saved the world

the darkness vibrated with more and more intensity, than it separated itself from the light in a very explosive, very quick movement, later scientists would call it the big bang, some would call it creation, others, wouldn't care less and just live out their life cycles. The darkness took its favorite form, even though they never remembered their existences before the whole of creation caved in on itself, they always started this way, and they always knew there had been a "before". As darkness took the now familiar form quickly, long limbs slender, tall and pale, (the form changed to suite what ever other forms the light would come up with, but always the same to begin with.) it than relaxed and watched with interest what form or forms the light would come up with, the light tended to come up with a form in the beginning and the majority of the life forms in creation would take that form.  
So darkness watched with interest as the light stretched out and with every thin tendril that stretched the tip would lash out and touch a part of darkness, creating a ball of gas and fire. "Interesting" thought darkness, "we are all going to be big gasbags" and so the stars were born. Than the light curled in on it self and created a form.  
This form was small, some what triangular with longer tendrils that solidified into extensions that protruded from the tip of the triangular shape and then two more that jutted out from the edges of the top of the shape. "well! It seems that it is copying my shape" thought darkness, somehow pleased. Usually it had to adjust to the light's idea of life, not the other way around. Of course there was lights own spin on this shape but still, darkness was flattered.  
They looked at each other, darkness and light, and light smiled. "hello brother" it said. Darkness smiled and inclined its head in a nod. "Shall we begin this trip together?" darkness asked. "let it be so" light stated with a big grin. and creation began.

Eons later...  
Death and Father looked at what had begun and were pleased. The universe had begun well.. the Enochians were tending to the universe well, doing what they were meant to do. And it was thriving. Father looked and Death and said, "im going to change things up." "whats new brother dear?" death said with a chuckle, Father said, "im bored, there is no chaos, nothing to surprise me. And I believe I wish for this to continue with out me for a while". Death looked at Father surprised, he was such a control freak and this was new. "well what exactly did you have in mind?" death asked. Father chuckled and said. " im going to create a world and give one species on it free will to do as they wish, but first im going to test the free will on the Enochians I created to see how that goes". Death smiled at Father. ( a name the first two of the Enochians had given and it stuck) "well after eons of doing only what you say, that ought to go over well" Death chuckled to him self, "it should give me plenty to do as well"... and so Father called his Enochians over and gave them permission to do as they please... and the Enochians promptly chose to do what they had been doing all along. What they were told. "hmmm stated Father, "well that didn't work out the way I had planned at all". Death laughed out loud and said "well maybe they need an example to follow". Father looked at Death and thought to himself..an example hmmm... than grinned the most mischievous grin Death had ever seen on his face.. Death thought "uh oh"...

another couple of eons...

Father looked around at all the energy around him and tugged. When he had created the Enochians, he had created the first one very strong and instead of becoming a powerful leader like he had wanted, it had split into two. One he called Michael and the other he called Lucifer Than he took stock of what he had done and toned the grace down a bit with the others. Michael, he instructed to go and look over the creation and evolution of the worlds of a certain galaxy, as he was calling the grouping of stars, other galaxies would have their own protectors and lifeforms, along with their own version of him. All of them connected of course, he was after all The Creator, The Light. But each one could work independently and all the experiences would be shared by all. this one was the most recent that He had created. This one had potential, he knew it. Father hummed to it self as he continued to create the other Enochians with Lucifer's assistance. Michael was tending to his own job, content to do what he was doing, and beautiful and perfect of course. Lucifer, was just, well so bright and had so much potential. Besides for some reason Father liked his company more than Michaels, not better, just more.. So Father let him watch as He created the others, Urial, Raphael, Gabriel, (oops, Father put just a bit to much of that particular bit of grace in Gabriel, oh well, who was Lucifer to question the Father, maybe if he just added a touch of this type of grace when He wasn't looking... and there. Well if Gabriel seemed to have a bit more of Fathers humor than the others, He wont say anything, Father wouldn't have to know) Father watched amused as Lucifer tried to "help" him, and quietly balanced the grace's together so that Gabriel would come out correctly. Father was pleased, that was the first time any of his children had showed any use of the 'free will' that he had layed over them like a second skin. Progress.

Father continued with Balthazar and a few more. And after the second skin of free will was placed on all of them he called them the Arch-angles and gave them their orders. "protect and love my and my creations." he had, with deaths help, remade his Enochians. And they didn't have a clue. He than began the Lesser angels thinking that if the Arch angles had someone to give orders to perhaps they would begin to think for them selves... and nope... Father was frustrated.. He had done his job TOO well. " hmmm, I think I need a break to let this just work out".. "so lets see whats next...? oh yes the planet I had begun".. so he finished it and called it Earth.  
Father looked at everything and thought "well, none of these creations seem worth the free will idea, I need something more" so he watched. The earth went thru several types of creatures before He was content, then there was the Leviathan catastrophe. he had given them free will and had to lock them away in a special dimension just to keep the rest of creation safe.. "and I wont be doing that again any time soon" Father thought with a sigh of relief, while Lucifer and Raphael watched him carefully, it had taken all of the archangels and in the end He had intervened because they just did not understand the concept of making their own choices yet and it had actually been a hindrance in the fight against the Leviathan. "but Lucifer had almost done it, and then looked at Me for permission and almost lost his life..." Father actually hadn't seen the out come of that fight before it happened as He had begun to stop Looking, for the surprise factor.  
Well there was some progress...  
So Father decided maybe if he took a little of the mammals and put them together like this and .. "Wait!" He thought! "I got it. Ill make a different kind of grace, I'll call it a soul," He began to work in earnest now, single minded and took a bit of His grace, a bit of star dust and free will and wove it TOGETHER in to a single soul and POW! It was breath taking, Father took a look at the brightness and thought. "perfect, my most perfect perfect creation!" and called all of the archangels to see. And stated out loud. "This is it! The most perfect of all of my creations. I have decided that you will now serve me by loving this before myself!" The archangels, where in awe, some in shock that Father would give that command but who where they to question. Michael bowed first of course, and said, "as you command so shall it be done Father." and the rest followed, Lucifer being last after some hesitation. Father in his excitement did not notice, and continued to prattle on about this "souls" perfection. but Death did. "hmmm" Death thought, "I wounder what that will bring."  
And so Adam was made, Eve followed shortly, and they called Father "God" and the Angles and Archangels continued around doing their duty and God would walk in the garden and revel in all that he had made. And Lucifer thought. And he continued to think about all his father and him had done together and then those things that Father had made had taken up Fathers time. And he missed Father. So he went to the garden to see Him.  
Father was talking to Adam, Eve had wandered off some where to speak to the serpents. They were her favorite, Adam told Lucifer with excitement. "Father, perhaps we could create something together" Lucifer asked Father during a lull in the conversation. "not today my son" Father stated, "i must spend time with Adam, you should as well, you never come down here any more to see how wonderful my creations are" Father eyed him in a way that made Lucifer uncomfortable. Almost,, disappointed.. "well perhaps later" father said. And went back to paying attention to Adam. Lucifer was confused with the feelings in him and left. Why was father disappointed in him? He had only done as he was asked... well perhaps he could spend some time with father while father was in heaven while the garden was in its night cycle...  
Lucifer was feeling a fire in his chest, and all over those stupid Mud Monkeys! For a hundred cycles he had tried to get Father to pay attention to him! His favorite archangel and every time, the monkeys would be more important. It wasn't fair! Lucifer stopped storming around the cosmos and sighed, dejected while he watched the latest victims of his temper burn slowly out.. now there were no more stars in this part of the galaxy and Father would be upset, perhaps he could blame it on death..  
Than it hit him! Father only loved his monkeys more than him because they were so perfect. They obeyed his every command, so perhaps if he could convince Father that they were not as perfect as the Enochians, than he would have fathers love back. "Yes! It would work! It had to!" he thought. He just needed help from his family...  
"How dare you!" cried his brother Michael, looking at Lucifer like he had just proposed the end of all. "They are fathers favored of all of creation how can you even suggest they are less than perfection?" His other brothers had equal looks of surprise and other emotions on their faces. "Gabriel tried to shush both of them.. "Lets not fight guys? Please? Were family here" Michael and Lucifer stood toe to toe. "We were once his favored or don't you remember, Brother,?" Lucifer said in his most pleading of tones. "they are a mistake! And Father can't see that. How many times has father had us destroy his creations after professing they were wonderful?" Lucifer could see in Raphale's eyes he was listening. So he addressed the rest of his brothers as well, "its just like those times! Father just needs to listen to us, all of us to see this! These creatures DO NOT deserve more love than father does!" Lucifer was shaking from all the confusing emotions he was feeling.. "look at us brothers! Never have we disagreed like this! Never have we ever fought like this! Its all because of them! The mud monkeys!" Lucifer saw the smirk on Urials face when he called them that and smirked back. "never!" said Michael in his deadliest voice. Lucifer had never heard that tone before and he was hit by a wave of anger and sadness from his twin soul.."I am telling father of this and letting Him deal with you for even the suggestion of destroying his perfect works". Michael left in a flutter of wings. "it'll be ok bro" Balthazar said to Lucifer. "all you gotta do is ask father to forgive you for those thoughts and voila! Nirvana again" He smiled at his Brother. Lucifer just glowered and pushed him back away from him. Then left to follow Michael.  
Father was not pleased and told Lucifer so. Lucifer had never felt the wrath of his Father before, but something inside of him would not let it go.. "I will NOT bow before those creatures Father! You cannot ask me to! They are beneath me! Beneath us all! Made from clay of all things! What makes them so much more special than us? They have no grace, no power! They are weak, pathetic creatures that have to walk to where they go! You had to create rules for them to follow! I cannot do this thing you ask of me! Please don't make me!" Father looked at his favorite, most beautiful angel and could only feel the rage of being disobeyed. Of being challenged by this, his creation. "how dare you presume to rebel against my wishes!" the angles cowed all around as creation itself shook. Death looked up in surprise and assigned one of his assistance to finish the job he was doing. Destroying a star and creating a black hole wasn't hard after all.. this he had to see. And he popped in to watch what he knew was a game changing event with pleasure. "Father please, In sure Luci didn't mean it! He really just came here to ask for forgiveness! Didn't you Luc?" Michael was terrified, when he had told Father about Lucifer's comments he wasn't prepared for this! Father was supposed to just chuckle and ruffle Their feathers and sternly tell Lucifer what he was supposed to be doing.. thats what Father did when angels went off their orders. It had happened before in the ranks... and everything was fine after a quick one on one meeting with Father.. the offending angel was back to normal after that.. This had never happened. Father had never lost his temper, not with them.  
Father only lost his temper with the other spirits that came from the energy from the Beginning, the ones that called themselves "god's" oh this was bad... Michael cowered in the corner at the fierce look Father sent him. Father slowly turned back to Lucifer, who was not backing down! Michael sent out waves of thoughts to his twin soul, begging him to ask for forgiveness, not to do what he knew Lucifer would do.. "please! Soul mate! Do not do this!" michaels heart reached out to Lucifer only to be blocked angrily by Lucifer. Something he had never done before. And it broke Micheal's heart.  
"Is this true Son?" Father asked, dead quietly, "did you come to ask forgiveness from me?" Michael held his grace, hoping against hope,, but to no avail, and he wailed quietly in anguish as Lucifer defied his father once and for all... "No I did not. I came to beg you to destroy the monkeys that you ask that I love more than you for I cannot love something that is beneath me more than I can love you" Death snickered quietly to himself.. "well, he wanted free will and surprise" death thought, "Now here it is and he cant handle it, oh he's gonna hate himself for this later."  
Fathers wrath exploded white hot all around them, and he reached out to snuff out Lucifer's grace with a snap, when he felt himself blocked, He looked around to see his brother looking at him thoughtfully, "I thought you wanted them to think for themselves, brother?" he asked so only God could hear him. Father looked at Lucifer and thought back to Death, "yes, but they must also not dis obey, or face the consequences." Father was still white hot with rage at the rebellion. Death mused quietly. "So banish him to a place like the one you called purgatory. Give him time to think on his rebellion. How do you expect the others to think for themselves, if you destroy them when they do it. Also, think about what it would do to your most loyal of archangels, his twin soul..." Father looked and saw the grief in Michaels face and made his decision. Time resumed..  
Father looked at Lucifer and said in his quietest commanding voice. "think on what you have done, by rebelling against my command, Lucifer, and know that I spared you out of love for you and your soul mate." Michael sighed with relief at those words only to feel the anguish again.. "you are banished from heaven Lucifer until such a time as you have redeemed yourself and come to your senses. Leave now" Father turned to Michael and said. "if you wish for your twin to live, make sure he leaves to earth for his punishment. There are others that also wish to leave with him. Make them go as well" and Father left.

Michael looked at Lucifer in grief and stood up. "you should be pleased father chose to spare your life". Lucifer shook his head, "are you really going to obey his orders, brother?" I have no choice, twin," Michael said sadly as he pulled his sword out and forced Lucifer out to where the other angels had gathered. "than I will fight you Michael, but know that it is with a heavy heart that I do so" Lucifer smiled sadly, Michael gave him back the same smile and sent a wave of love thru the bond between them. And the fight began at Michaels order. The angles that followed Lucifer were cast out and the ones that were smart kept their thoughts to themselves. And stayed in heaven, and followed Fathers will..  
Lucifer did not repent, he in fact corrupted those perfect creatures of Fathers and Father was forced to ban them from the garden. He instructed several angels to teach them to take care of them selves and stopped speaking to Adam and eve. Cain killed able, eve couldn't handle God turning his back on them and slowly began to change. She became the mother of all monsters out of rage for her creator.  
And when God saw how corrupt His favored had become, he decided to create a creature of light to balance the darkness on earth. So he created elves, again, not learning his lessons of pride, the elves also became split by Lucifer and became both dark and light. And a threat to the favored humans and so were sent to another realm. The fairy realm where surprisingly, they took to free will very well and light became stronger than dark. In the human realm things kept a balance very precariously and finally Father had had enough. He called Michael to him and spoke.  
"Michael, I know you love your brother dearly, but he is not repentant as he should be! I do not understand. I have decided he is to dangerous to be left out. I have created a cage in another dimension that you must place him in. and he is to stay locked away until such a time as he comes to his senses or until the end of times..". Father looked at Michael and sadly placed a hand on his shoulder. "i know this is hard for you, but it's either this or destroy him and sadly that will destroy you" Michael sighed and simply said, "yes father" and the second angel war indues.

Death and Father sat together on earth a while later, peace in heaven reigned again but it was a sad peace, due to the indestructible nature of soul, the heavens had been reconstructed to create a place for the souls of humans that had died and hell had expanded for all the demons that Lucifer had created with eve and by himself in a deluded attempt to create as God had done. They were just enjoying a quiet spell on earth where there were no wars, brief as it was, and both knew it would be time to go to work soon. Father had created a female version of himself and attached it to the planet and the humans had named her Gaia. The humans took to Her and to the magic that She taught them how to use. They had been surprisingly adept at magic, these humans, and father was indulgent with them, he had set few rules for them to follow and had allowed a way for redemption using blood magic to cleanse their sins from their souls. But it had gotten out of hand and every time they would surprise Him, Death would chuckle and remind him that He was the one that wanted surprise and wove free will into the making of a soul. And that adding His own grace was what had caused this mess of a creation in the first place.

Over the course of humans time on earth God discovered that with enough energy from enough souls, humans could create. Really create, much like him, and one such creation was the Fates by the druids. The three fates were now involved in humans lives and God had discovered, much to his bemusement, that he could not directly interfere with out messing up the whole free will part of creation. So he tinkered. The Chrone appeared beside him, interrupting his musings. They sat like that for a bit, quiet, then she spoke. "if the humans keep sacrificing animals for every supposed sin they think they committed, you will run out of animals soon." God just glanced at her.. "you need to find a way to make it possible for humans to simply ask for forgiveness, or just decide to forgive them all and let them be. Because if you don't they will kill themselves off and that would just prove your son right." The crones words struck at Gods pride just like they all knew they would.  
So he took the bait, "what did you have in mind, seer." He found it challenging to not look at the countless futures that free will created. Even though he was God and knew all about all of his creations, past, present and future. He stilled enjoyed surprise, so he chose not to look. "you need to create a son that can take the place of the sacrifices, a human soul that will give the ultimate sacrifice." She watched him as she spoke. "you know what these humans are capable of, and you want me to create a soul that will have free will and willingly become a lamb for these humans?" He asked carefully. She gave a small nod.  
"So whats the catch?" Death asked, intrigued. She smiled very slightly, "you must create the soul from yourself so you gain the experience of being human as well, It will give you a perspective on these humans that you previously didn't have" She sighed,"and it will begin a story that will create a balance that is sorely lacking" She looked at Death and God. "there has to be a final battle between Lucifer and Michael, where and when is up to all of the host of heaven, hell and earth. But there is many chances for it to happen". "if you do not, than nothing will change, and this creation will be over before it gets a chance to really get going. That is the price you pay for weaving free will into those souls." She laughed as she disappeared. Death shrugged and disappeared as well, leaving God to his Musings.. How hard could it be? So He set out to do just that. Little did he know...  
God decided that he would do more than just weave a bit of his grace in to this soul like The Croan suggested, he put another version of himself into the child, like he did at the beginning of creation for the other galaxies. The whole experience was uncomfortable to say the least. When it was all done and he returned to heaven, he had a whole new respect for these humans, also he retweaked heaven so that the humans that were there could share with the ones they loved, and for why Lucifer had rebelled as well. God sighed, "well I can't change what I have started, but I have learned yet another way to love my creation." another sigh as he waited for the archangels to form ranks, thinking to himself, "a parent cannot hover or the children never learn. So I will go to earth, watch and speak only to Joshua, after I set up the story, I will allow my children to grow and hope they grow wiser than I was." Father had learned the dangers of pride, ego and other such emotions. He had created these things and not really felt them. But that was before. Now, he understood and knew what he had to do. But before.. there were some pawns he had to place. And with the help of the Mother, the second of the fates, he had seen what he needed to do before he left to make the best outcome for this story.  
God told the archangels only parts of his plans, of a paradise after the final battle and set up the story. Told the heavenly host to listen to Michael and told Michael of the battle to come. Not the when but that there were key players. "but above all Michael, please listen, free will must come first, please understand, above all, protect free will or all will be lost. Protect and love ALL of my creations. Life is precious, all of life. If love comes together and creates life, it is precious." Michael nodded solemnly, he always took his role of first brother and leader very very seriously, "yes father" God hugged him and then dismissed him. Sadly thinking had he understood then, what he discovered as a Human, Lucifer would not have been lost, but hindsight and all.  
God Found his two hideaway archangels next, Gabriel and Balthazar and gave them their orders. "Gabriel my son, you will continue on your path as Loki and keep away from heaven. Stay with those humans you love so much. And when the time comes you will know what to do, I just pray you make the right choice," the last part he thought to himself. "also, there is an Elvin princess that I wish you to help, before you return. In the Faye realm." Gabriel looked confused but shrugged, gave his Dad a hug, (gabe had taken to calling him Dad after hearing it from a human a few thousand years ago and God found it endearing) and a pat on the back and left. God sighed, laughed and pulled the kick me sign off his back and looked at Balthazar and shook his head. "he always did have a better grasp on humor than anyone else. I think that was Lucifer's doing when he thoughtfully added more ingredients to Gabes grace while we were making him together" God sighed and told Balthazar of his duties and sent him on his way.  
Gabriel returned with the seraph God had asked for. "why has God summoned me Brother?" The seraph asked nervously, His wings moving in agitation "I am but a servant, a solder in Fathers vast army" Gabriel gave his favorite seraph a hug to calm him.. "I promise Castiel, you are not in any trouble. You have been chosen for a very important mission. I recommended you because, well your my fab little bro and of course you are such a bad ass fighter." The seraph looked down modestly and made a noise, "I don't think I deserve that praise Gabriel, but thank you anyway." God made his presence known, gently. The archangels where the only ones to see his face, so the poor seraph may have a coronary on the spot if he wasn't careful. God chuckled at his human terming in his thoughts. The seraph immediately went to his knees and planted his face on the floor, wings out spread, to show submission. "Castiel, my son, please get up." God said in a gentle tone. Castiel did as he was told, careful to keep his gaze down. "Look at me" God placed his hand under the seraph's chin and gently pushed up.  
After a small hesitation, which God smiled at, it showed the free will had left its mark on this one, Castiel looked at the face of His Father for the first time and was rewarded with the feeling of so much love that tears came to his eyes. "what would you like from me, F-Father?" "I have a mission for you Castiel, it will be dangerous, and you could die, would you like to take it?" confusion crossed Castiels face at Gods Words, "I-uh-are you giving me a CHOICE?" he asked? Than dropped his eyes in fear for even asking the question. God pushed his face up again to look him in the eyes. "free will was given to all my creations Castiel, my son, not just humans." God waited while that turned in the seraphs brain for a bit. And laughed to himself, this one has a very large amount of curiosity. And he could hear the wheels turning in his head. "You will not remember having met me, you will not know why you feel as though you should do the things you do, but you will feel obligated to do them anyway. You must say yes knowing these things and knowing that this memory will not be returned to you until I deem it necessary." Castiel continued to think, his head turned to the side as he did so. God smiled.  
Castiel finally nodded and said yes, and God smiled, knowing he would. "very well, close your eyes son and I will make the changes to you that you will need" So it was that Castiel had his cloak of free will that was given to every angel woven into his grace. Than God sat the seraph down and let him watch as he again made a soul. He explained he was making the soul of a righteous man, a very special, very unique righteous man, being that there were quite a few of those righteous men running around every generation or so. But this one was special, God was saying to Castiel, who watched enraptured, as no one of his rank had ever gotten to see God make a soul before, when all of a sudden, God took a piece, a very tiny, minute piece of Castiels grace and wove it into the soul. Castiel looked at God in confusion and God said. "just so it recognizes you at it's darkest hours My dear son." and Castiel nodded wisely, even though he had no idea what that was about.  
Than God made a face, and said "well crap, I wasn't expecting that to happen again" and there was a shift and the soul split into two! But not completely, there was a very small thread connecting them. And God sighed as The daughter aspect of fate showed up. Making Castiel jump.

"Really?" God asked, "twins again? And that worked so well last time" "It is for the best im sure" The daughter stated, pushing up her black rimmed glasses. "The strings of fate state its brothers for round one" and if they avert the Apocalypse, than they will have to keep the line going for the next time" God sighed, knowing that these two souls had a hard time ahead and hoped for the best for them, "Castiel, there has been a change of plans," God looked at the seraph, quietly watching the exchange. "this one," God held up his Right hand, "is the righteous man, this one," God showed the angel the left hand, "is his brother, his twin and soul mate" He sighed, "The righteous man is very important, but you should try to protect the brother as well, he's just as important in a different way"  
The seraph simply nodded. "Yes father, I swear"

God finished and put the souls in their container together to bond and to wait out the next 1500 years or so and turned to Castiel, "now remember, my son, along with your mission to protect and cherish the twins, also remember, your primary mission also apply, protect and love my creation, All life is to be cherished." The seraph nodded again and God hugged him close. "I love you my son" and God buried the memories deep. Gabriel took Castiel back to his garrison and gave them the announcement that he was placing Castiel in charge of his own garrison. His promotion to captain was a good one and Gabriel made sure to throw a party for him. Anna congratulated him and then they were given the order to protect five bloodlines and then given three cherub cupids to make sure those five bloodlines would merge eventually in the 20th century. No one knew why, just what to do and they went about doing it.

Gabriel returned to God and waited to be acknowledged. God looked up and asked, "yes Gabriel, what is it?" "What exactly am I doing with this Elf Queen, father, I peeked in and they wont need help from anyone for a few millennium." "Your going to create a child My son. And despite what some of the arch angels have been spouting, nephilliam are NOT abominations! However this child will not be half human, The elf queen is quite smitten with your Loki persona. And I know that despite your fascination with Kali, of which I don't approve by the way, you two will hit it off quite well, and her elven earth magic is perfect for what I need to do with the child." Gabriel actually laughed out loud he was so surprised by the answer. "you know that for fact do you? What if I rebel like Luci did and don't go at all?" Gabriel couldn't believe he was speaking to God of all people like that, what had gotten into him? Had Kali been a bad influence after all? He waited for the wrath to commence.  
God just looked at him and chuckled, "I do think that, and do you know why?" Gabriel shook his head, still expecting a good smiting. " because you are just too curious for your own good my son." Father than laughed, loud and long and smacked him on the shoulder and left. Gabriel stood there in the quiet and felt one last wave of love and then it was gone. Quiet and still. Gabriel snorted and shook his head, considered what Dad had told him, then grinned and said. "Daddy dearest you know me too well." Just as he was about to snap himself out, the proverbial shit hit the fan as the realization of 'God has left, we feel him no more' swept thru heaven. Gabriel giggled, and left for the fairy realm, not envying Michael his job at all... no way.

God, Death, and the Fates stood watching creation together one last time while in this form. Watching as a wave hit and rolled thru heaven and hell as they realized God wasn't personally involved with earth, or them, any more. Sure rumor has it he's coming back. Raphael and Urial swear that God is disgusted with his children and wont come back until the Apocalypse has happened and Michael and Lucifer have finally had it out, then and only then will the host have proven worthy of paradise again. Michael keeps heaven on its leash, just barely, by giving out assignments and work that God had left. Joshua promises to keep God informed and Death simply shrugs and says. "well brother, I hope your experiment works the way your wish for it to. Humans are so unpredictable at the most inopportune times. And now I have work to do, thank you for the reapers by the way." God nods and smiles, the fates watch and weaves and life goes on.. and God goes to earth to watch.

2014 AFTER SAM AND DEAN SEE THE MUSICAL

Its been a week since the musical, a week and Sam still won't shut up about the "subtext" and name combinations! Dean has had it, So he does what he always does when Sam wont let go of something he is teasing Dean unmercifully about, He punches Sam and leaves to go get pie. Sam chuckles, rubbing his face and sits down to finish researching,  
They are still trying to find a way to restore Cas's grace before he dies, and Sam knows that between all the tension Dean and Cas have, and Deans worry about losing Cas yet again, (to be honest Sams kinda worried now too) Sam kinda deserved that punch, But dammit all, Cas and Dean are head over heals in love with each other and neither will admit it and it would be nice if one of the brothers got to be happy with someone they loved. Sm's all but given up on that aspect of his life, but Cas is right there and So is Dean and so what if they're both male. Cas has repeatedly inferred that God didn't care about sexual orientation so that excuse is out the window.. Sam sighed as he re read the same line for the fourth time. Maybe a hunt would help. He saw one in Montana this morning. Good old fashion vamp nest. He called Dean to see what he thought about it.  
Dean hit the gas too hard and thru gravel all over behind him, some bounced up and hit baby and he stopped immediately. He shouldn't let Sam get to him like that, probably shouldn't have hit him either, naw the bitch deserved that. Dean chuckled, he got to the store down in town and found an apple pie, got some beer and a salad for Sam. Dean grabbed some orange juice and milk and bread as an after thought. Sam had said something this morning about no milk for his granola or something equally as unappealingly healthy.  
Dean's mind wandered back to the fight, well his blowup this morning. After that damn musical, (that he would never admit to that he kinda liked,) he had felt that maybe there was a way to get back to the way he and Sammy had been. Before he had sold his soul and left Sammy alone up here while he was in hell, Before all the good intention lies that had been told, before all the crap that had torn them apart. If Dean was honest with him self, (he tried real hard not to be) He had been just as bad at starting that shit as Sam. More so in fact. After all he broke the first seal, something that was completely unforgivable.  
The worst part had been when he had found out Sam hadn't even looked for him when he'd gone to purgatory. (better than hell by a long shot) but still, Sam had gone nuts, ignored Kevin and just.. hit a dog, (and let the dog in the car!) but than, there was that time He had let the Sheppard ride in the car when he was pulling the dr Doolittle all week. (By the way real proud of not making those references during the case), not that he didn't want to or anything. Dean chuckled to him self at that one.  
Than when the hurt had died down from the shock of that first confession of Sam's, He'd begun to realize that really, what could Sam have done, and He of all people deserved a year off didn't he?, hell dean had gotten one! Granted before and after he'd gone to Lisa, he had tried everything he could think of to bring Sam back, but he still had gotten a year off. But that was just because Sam had decided not to bring him back into the fight after he'd come back sans soul. And then the fact that bobby never told him and damn it he was trying to see this from Sammy's point of view and it was only making him madder!  
Dean took a deep breath and calmed himself down. Ok, so clean slate. Rebuild bond with brother, check and find out how to keep his best friend in the entire world next to Sam, check.  
But that brought back thoughts about why he was out here to begin with. So analyze idjit. He could hear Bobby in his head. Why does that subtext make you mad and why does it bother you when Sam teases you about it? If the roles where reversed, he'd be teasing Sammy from sun up to sun down about it until he himself was bored doing it.  
So Cas is his best friend, next to Sam, and sure he cares a great deal about Cas, and even thou he would never admit to it out loud, he could even say he loves Cas, purely platonicly of course! As a brother in arms. He's even told Cas that several times! Like at the brothel when he told him to never change. Or, when Cas was beating the crap out of him under Naomi's jedi mind control thing and he told him he was family damn it, he told Cas he Needed him! If that wasn't an out right declaration of love than damn it what was a guy to do? Sammy understood that! Dean slammed his hand down on the steering wheel, than immediately apologized to baby for his rough treatment.  
So He never admitted to himself the butterfly's in his stomach when Cas showed up could be because of anything else than just because the angel does not have any concept of personal space. Still. After 7 years. And he would never admit to anyone just how blue is now his favorite color, Or how he fell apart every time Cas went missing. (quietly of course, a man never falls apart in public) And there was no way in hell he'd ever admit out loud that he enjoyed the idea of Cas watching over him while he slept. Besides, Cas was family.  
The phone rang and startled him out of his musing. "Ya Sammy what, im on my way home"  
The other side of the line was quiet for a bit than, "Dean I found a possible vamp nest in Montana that Garth says we are the closest to, want to take it?" Dean thought about it for about a half a second. Exactly what this team needs to get idle minds away from name sharing and feelings and shit. "definitely, I'll be back in about 10." "Kay, see ya" Sam hung up the phone and went to work packing what they would need.  
"I thought Garth said this was a SMALL vamp nest dammit" Dean yelled to Sammy as they retreated to the impala, being chased by at least 50 vamp. "not a bunch of small vamp nests that got together to take out half of Montana!" Sam was to busy running and out of breath to respond. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye just before a vamp slammed into him from the left. "ooof. Get off me you blood sucker" he grunted as they rolled from the momentum of being hit. The gun on the vamps neck as it hissed trying to force its way down to bite his neck. Just before his arms gave out the head disappeared in a spray of blood. Sam whipped his eyes and saw a blurry figure above him holding out a hand. "get up handsome before you become kibble for vamps" the light voice had some sort of accent he couldn't place but he knew he had heard it some where before.  
He grabbed the arm and was surprised at the strength in the yank that dragged him up. It was angelic, almost. Like when Cas would help him up. He wiped the rest of the blood from his eyes and looked... down at bright green eyes and long black as night hair, pale skin and an impish look in her eyes. "ya like what you see?" she asked amused. "uh.. ya, I mean thanks!" he stammered. She snorted, "don't thank me yet" and pointed to the mob of vamp coming at them. She pulled out a machete and handed it to him. "can you fight duel handed?" "uh hu" he was still a bit shocked at how tiny this girl was. "hay! Head in the game human! I for one am not getting eaten today!" Than she turned and got into a fighting stance. Sam heard Dean yelling for him. "over here!" Sam called and than had to focus because there were twenty five vamps at least coming towards him and this mystery girl. Sam heard an explosion to his right and grinned. Dean had gotten to the silver mines they had planted. Just as the first of the vamps hit the girl,. Dean popped up beside him. "who's the chick?" he asked out of breath.. Sam shrugged, "don't know but she saved my ass" Then the vamps got to them and both boys jaws dropped as she ran into the mob. The girl was taking them all on, one head gone with every swipe of her blades. And man she was fast! Dean and Sam looked at each other in amazement and then the stragglers got to them. And they were fighting for their lives.

Sam finished of the last vamp with a quick slash with the machete the girl had given her. And looked around. A total of 56 vamps laying in various places. And they were covered in gore. They were both exhausted and were just going thru the motions while they dragged the body to the hole the mysterious girl had dug. Said girl was just trudging up to the hole with a vamp by the belt in each hand walking like she had a bag of ice in each hand instead of a 180 ish pound person. Dean put lighter fluid all over the massive pile and lit it. The boys stared at the flames for a few minutes just trying to wrap their heads around the fact that they were still alive.

Dean pulled away from the flames first and headed back to the impala after a quick smack on Sam's arm to get him to follow. They trudged up the hill to the road where they left the car. Sitting on the trunk was the mysterious girl who'd helped them. While Dean was grateful, very grateful that she had been there, (and Garth was going to get his ass reamed for the miss info on this one. After a good night sleep,) The first thing he did was direct his anger at the situation onto her.  
"Who the hell are you?" She actually looked amused. "Dean, Dean wait," Sam said his voice tired. "She did just save both of our asses, a thank you might be nice" Sam took a good look while he said this to Dean. Aside from what he'd said. He really doubted that if she wanted to kill them that they had a chance at this point any way, and he tried to will that thought to his brother. Dean just turned around and got the towels from the back of the car and some baby wipes and started cleaning up, watching them carefully. "Thank you, now who the hell are you?" Dean said again. Sam rolled his eyes.  
The young woman, Sam could see she was older than she looked at first glance, continued to look very amused and her green eyes sparkled. "your both welcome" she said, her voice musical and that accent again, Sam knew that he'd heard it before. He stuck out his hand after wiping it off on a towel, (some how she was only a little bit dirty, how the hell did she manage that? And didn't seem a bit tired) She came up to Sams chin about and had such black hair that it looked blue tented in the sun, She had it up in a high pony tail and it still came down to just above her waist, her eyes were emerald green and her skin pale. She was very delicate looking, and definitely didn't look like she had the strength that Sam knew from personal experience she possessed. Very athletic build, dispite the willowy-ness of her. and she was dressed in black jeans and a black tank top. Her swords, (yes Sam realized they were real swords) where in sheaths on her back so she could just reach back behind her waist and pull them out. Sam know she definitely knew how to use them.  
The more Sam stared the more amused she seemed and she just let him stare. A throat cleared to his Right and he jumped and looked at Dean guiltily. Dean was not amused and let him know. "if your done staring romeo, i'd like to get a shower and bed" " oh ya! Sorry uh so thanks again for your help, uh" Sam looked around but didn't see a car or anything. "my bikes on the other side of the hill." she said with a smile "your welcome Sam, I'll see your around" she walked of with a wave and disappeared behind the hill. Seconds later he heard a bike start up and she drove by them with another wave and was gone.  
"Sam! Common man we still have an hour drive to the hotel!" Sam jumped again and got in the passengers side. Dean gave him a look and started driving. "what!?" aren't you the least bit curious as to who she is? What she is?" Sam asked. "ask me after I have slept Sam, than I promise, I'll be nice and concerned, cuz she never did tell us. But she did help and didn't try to kill us so right now im going with the weird, hot hunter chick who saved our asses and leave it at that, kapish?" Sam nodded and the rest of the drive all he could think about was two emerald green eyes and long black hair, and an accent that he just couldn't shake that he'd heard before and it was important..

They did make it to the hotel, and back to their room, Dean told Sam to shower first and after a quick ten min shower he went to bed and laid down on top of the covers with a groan of "im getting to old for this shit" which elected a chuckle out of Dean and Sam knew no more. When he woke up the clock on his phone told him he had been asleep for 18 hours, good thing they had booked this room for a week..Dean was still snoring softly in his bed, so Sam got up and got another shower, hotter this time since he wasn't saving water for Dean, and dressed in his running gear and went for a run. He kept thinking about that girl, "wow" he thought as he ran, "you've got it bad if you cant stop thinking about her" but he did admit to himself, (unlike dean, who was emotionally stunted) He was smitten. She had been beautiful. Those green eyes and that pixie face. Yes she definitely reminded him of an elf. Like the ones off of lord of the rings. He laughed to himself as he heard Charlie's voice in his head as he thought that. And wondered how she was doing in oz with Dorthy.  
Sam stopped to get coffee and when he walked back in the door he heard the shower running, Something over the years that has never changed. Dean always woke up if he left the room for more than ten min while Dean was asleep. The only time that changed was if Cas put him to sleep or kept his night mares at bay when they were particularly bad.  
Dean came out of the shower with a towel around his waist and spotted the coffee on the table where Sam always put it for him and grabbed it with a "yaahh, thanks Sammy" just like he always did.  
Sam smiled and thought that maybe, just maybe they would be alright and get back to the way they were. Sam packed up the rest of their stuff while Dean yelled at poor Garth about the horde of vamps as Dean called it. "Garth if I didn't know better, I'd say you set us up! Your lucky I don't come after you with a silver knife!" Dean paused for a sec, "Garth, Garth wait, don't, just don't start crying, im just stressed that's all, yes.." a sigh, "im sorry I threatened to kill you" another sigh. "yes Garth, bye, talk to you later". Dean hung up, muttering to himself about getting soft. Smiling to himself as he packed, Sam found a small piece of metal in his bag. He took it out and looked at it, running his thumb over it. He had fished it out of the trashcan when Dean left and hid it. He had been resigned to keeping it with him for ever until Dean had hung that stage prop "samulet" up in the car. Maybe one day he could give it back and Dean would be happy about it. Sam missed seeing it hanging around his brothers neck. Sam doubted Dean knew how much it had hurt to see him throw it away. But then again..  
but someday, maybe Sam would be able to see it around his neck again and know they would be alright as brothers. Not as innocent as they were back when they hit the road again together, but close, brothers till the end, us against the world close again.  
They had just got into the door of the bunker when Deans cell rang. He grumbled good naturedly as he saw who it was and opened the phone and put it on speaker. "whats up my bitches!" the cheerful voice on the other side of the phone said! " Charlie!" the brothers said together. "Shows oz? And have you met the wizard?" Dean asks as they walk down the stairs. "wonderful, and all adventury just like I had dreamed!" Charlie said in an excited voice, "but I'm not here to talk to you about oz. I just got back from the farie realm and I have some news about a new badie in town that we need to talk about" Sam and Dean looked at each other "what kind of new badie?" Dean asked. "I'm almost there, we'll talk about it then, oh! I almost forgot, I have someone you may want to meet. I know you will in fact! She's a bad ass mama jama and she's here to help us gank that bitch! See ya soon! Bye. " click.  
Charlie hung up before the boys could tell her no about bringing a guest, they were awfully picky about who they let see the bunker. Charlie looked over at the Girl beside her and grinned. "Give them a chance Myka, They're gonna love you. With you being a light elf and all. Plus with your bad ass fighting skills and everything else, it'll just take a few days for them to warm up to you, oh!" charlie took a breath before plunging in again. "Dean is the oldest, he'll start flirting with you asap, once I introduce you, Sams the youngest, he's more reserved but I think you two will get along better than you and Dean. Oh! Not that I'm trying to set you up or anything with you being centuries old and all, but then with elves you're like technically younger than they are, not that your a baby or anything,, I'll just shut up now." Charlie's voice faded away.  
"don't worry Charlie, Father warned me all about them before we got here, I'm sure we will get along just fine." The elf in the passengers seat laughed softly as she reassured her human friend. This was going to be fun if her father's stories were anything to go off of. But she thought perhaps Charlie was right, She was going to get along with Sam much better than Dean. She closed her Green eyes and put her head back on the seat as she strengthened her Glamor spell against the angel wards her father told her about. Going over the spell in her mind as she whispered the enchantment one more time before she met the Winchesters again.  
Well, unlike her Father, she wasn't going to make the mistake of lying to the Winchesters right off the bat. She just needed the glamor for the normal humans. Charlie had seen her true form during the battle at Eynetaesi where she had needed all her magic to save the city and all of its inhabitants. That was something she shared with her mother, if at all possible there would be no casualty among the innocents. She would show her true form to the Winchesters when her uncle was there to vouch for her, although she didn't think Castiel knew about her, he could see the purity of her soul and identify her fathers grace. Which, depending on the humans mood, she wasn't sure how that part of her pedigree would be received. She relaxed back and enjoyed the drive, much smother than a horse or even a unicorn, and listened to Charlie sing to one of her favorite songs.

"Charlie! Charlie!, shit, did she say she was bringing a guest? Here?! What the HELL is she thinking? She's not, she must be under a spell, or possessed or something!" Sam let Dean rant for a bit before he stopped him. "Dean! Dean! Im sure Charlie would have been able to let us know if something was wrong Dean, plus she has the anti possession tattoo remember? Charlie's a smart girl and it's not as if we didn't have the king of hell here for a while, so it's not a secret anymore. Ya know?"  
Dean glared at Sam, but knew he was right. It was just, this was their safe place, their home and.. Dean sighed. "fine, but we go thru the whole thing, got it? Holy water, silver, salt. All of it. And we meet her outside!." "Sounds reasonable to me, Dean and if Charlie's bringing her to us, im sure she'll understand who ever this girl is. After all, charlies pretty impressed if she's calling her a 'bad ass mama jama'". Sam looked at Dean and Dean just grunted and left to get the stuff they needed ready. "I hope you know what your doing Charlie." Sam whispered as he climbed up the stairs behind Dean.

Dean and Sam went to the beginning of the Road to the bunker to wait, duffel bag in front of them on the ground. Charlie pulled in and saw the guys and stopped. "oh shit I forgot, your gonna have to do a few tests!" Charlie had an edge of panic in her voice. " I forgot im sorry, uh holy water, salt and a cut from a silver knife, silver wont hurt you right?" "no charlie I am light faye, not dark, none of those things hurt me. And remember, I am only half faye so the other half protects me from iron." "oh. ya. Right, cool. Sorry" Charlie got all those out in between huffs. "ok lets go" Charlie really started to get worried the more she thought about it. Maybe they should have done this in public,. Not in the bunker where the boys could make them both disappear. "Ok suck it up girl" she told herself. these are her boys, they would just have to take her word for it and trust her. Like she did them. Myka looked at her with an amused half smile. Charlie looked at her and groaned. "could you at least look little worried Myka?" "why? I am not worried" Charlie rolled her eyes. And started forward again.  
The sun was in the guys eyes at this time of day so when charlie pulled up, they could not see in the window. They both had their hands on their guns under their arms where crossed. Charlie could see they were on guard, and they had recently been in a fight, a big one, Charlie got out and told Myka to wait a bit. She then walked up and said hi, kinda shy like because she still wasn't a hundred percent they wouldn't shoot her dead on the spot. Sam grinned and gave her a big hug. Grunting a bit as she hit a sore spot, then he went back on guard while Dean grabbed her and gave her a big kiss on the cheek and squeezed her tight.  
Charlie stood back and clasped her hands together,and said "ok, I know this place is kinda like a secret club house and all, and im really lucky to be a part of this particular club house and all, um but I met this gal here during a fight and I watched as she like saved the whole town almost by her self and I know how you guy are about non humans, but like, there's Cas and all and, well, I just thought you could use a friend like her especially since someone from her world is here now and this is like a real bad bitch, and we r gonna need all the help we can get this time cus this is like end of the world type bad guy and..." Charlie's voice faded out as she saw Dean and Sam's face darken when she said non human and then the cloud started around Dean when she started talking about end of the world type enemies. "Charlie" Deans voice held the warning. If she was gonna introduce these guys to Myka, now was the time to shut up and do introductions. "ok but just keep an open mind ok ? Please, for me?"  
Dean just nodded once, with a jerk. Sam was just still.  
Charlie turned around and said. "ok Myka, come on out."..

Myka listened to charlie ramble on to the two guys outside. She kept her eyes closed enhancing the glamor as much as possible until she couldn't anymore and had to rely on her spell to hold. The angel warding on this bunker was strong and while it wouldn't hurt her, the glamor would be stressful to hold for more than a few days here. Had she been fully elf or angel, though she's not sure if the glamor would have held at all here in this realm. She often times felt very lucky to be a half breed. Now was one of those times. She sent a silent prayer to Gaia for strength, knowing she heard her children no matter the realm they were in and felt her love immediately. With a smile Myka heard charlie address her and got out of the car with a breath. More nervous than she cared to admit. She kinda liked the one called Sam and really wanted this to work.

When charlie called for this Myka woman to get out and be introduced, neither man had known what to expect, especially with charlies whole speech about non humans, after all she had just come from a place with flying monkeys for god's sake. But when the girl from the vamp nest stepped out with a very faint smile on her face, both men's jaws dropped. Dean predictably began to grumble and get angry, why he had no idea, Charlie obviously didn't know this chick had just saved their asses a few days ago, another reason why Dean had no idea why his hackles had gone up. Except for the non human thing again. Sam, on the other hand looked dumb struck. When Dean glanced at him he did a double take. And then grinned and immediately hid it. Sam looked just like he had when he had met his first school crush. Dean remembered he had dropped him off that day, Dad had gone on a hunt that ended up taking 3 weeks. Plenty of time for Sam to fall in puppy love. Dean had to comfort his first broken heart because of that hunt. Dean hid his grin well and elbowed Sam. Well if Sam had the hots for a girl again after Jess This girl did save their lives, so Dean decided to behave. After all, their relationship was still very fragile and Dean still owed him for that monster friend of Sams he had killed. "wow, boy have we changed" Dean mused to himself.  
Charlie watched Dean and Sam watch Myka get out of the car, Saw the recognition cross both their faces, thought "what the hell? How do they know Myka already? Than saw the individual reactions, all in the space of a second or two. Dean looked over at Sam, did a double take and blanked out his face immediately. Sam looked like he had been hit by a bus. It hit Charlie as she looked at Myka then back at Sam and she giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth. Dean spared her a warning glance and elbowed Sam in the ribs.  
Sam was looking at Charlie when she told Myka to come out and meet them, so he was even less prepared for who got out of the car, if possible, than Dean was. When he looked up at the Lady charlie brought them, he saw emerald green eyes and raven black hair and pale skin. His brain recognized the girl from the vamp nest and then froze, and he forgot to breath. She was beautiful. That's all he could get his brain to say, over and over. His chest was burning, he barley registered Charlies giggle,,wait giggle? And then a sharp pain in his bruised rib from something, oh Deans elbow.  
His brain got back on gear and he jumped away from Deans elbow and suspiciously blank face. He opened his mouth and blurted out. "your the girl from the Vamp horde nest!" Dean snorted, "smooth romeo" just low enough for him to hear and Sam felt the blush under his collar move to his ears and cheeks. She smiled at him, "wow she has a stunning smile" his treacherous brain thought. And Dean sighed and stepped forward. "Nice to see you again" She smiled again, this time in Deans direction and held out her hand, palm up. "Charlie said you have tests to preform?" She stated in her soft accented voice. Dean cocked his head sideways, just a hair, and favored her with a very small smile. Sam wondered briefly if he realized that he'd picked up that habit from Cas. "straight to the point, I like that" Dean said and pored holy water on her hand, she took the canister from him and took a swig, and gave it back to Dean, he smirked but shrugged and gave her a salt packed, that she downed with a grimace, but nothing more. "nasty stuff that salt," she said "why cant you humans enjoy the food you eat for the taste of the food?"  
Dean gave her a look and handed her a silver knife. This is where Myka was a bit nervous. She had some of her fathers grace after all and it would show as it healed her. She took a deep breath and cut the palm of her hand. Dean and Sam watched carefully, now that Sam had got his brain moving again and walked up slowly to where they were standing in front of Charlies car. Nothing more than a bleeding cut, than they saw it. The silver that shown as her hand healed in front of their eyes. Deans reaction was instantaneous. He had Cas's angel knife in his hand ready to throw and had stepped back in the ready. With a yell "She's a dick angel!" Charlie yelled "woah" and jumped in front of her friend, facing Dean down. And Sam stepped in front of Dean with a yell. "hold on Dean, hold on! She did save our lives in Montana! If she'd wanted to hurt us, she'd of just let us die"  
Myka for her part just stayed still and quiet, like her father had advised her to when this happened. "well papa, you were right as usual," "aren't I usually pip squeak?" He answered her quietly from where he was recuperating with her mother in their realm. The earth magic of the elves and her connection to Gaia here allowing the communication. Albit quiet, thru the distance. He wasn't fooling her though, he was watching and if Dean or Sam had done anything more than this, he would have done something to stop it. "that's why I made you wait till I was strong enough to go help, pip squeak." He laughed softly, "I'll make my grand entrance when I am at full strength. But until than, you are more than capable of doing this" With that statement, her fathers presence faded into a vague comforting feeling.

"Dean, put the angel blade away. She will not harm you" Cas's voice rang out and cut thru to everyone. In the moment, no one had heard Cas drive up and get out of the car. "Cas?" Dean put the blade away and Charlie let out a huge loud sigh of relief. "thank you Cas" she said. Cas nodded a your welcome in her direction. Sam noticed Myka looking at Cas strangely, and then she said, "yes Castiel, Thank you for your support". Charlie gave her a weird look, "i never told you his whole name". "perhaps we could go inside and sort this out as it appears to have begun to rain" Cas said. As if the storm was just waiting for an excuse. A loud clap of thunder hit right over head and the humans of the group realized a storm had blown up. Every one got into their cars and drove the rest of the way to the bunker and inside just as the down poor started. Dean ran down the stairs and went for beer's while everyone gathered in the common room. No one said anything until dean returned. "So you want to tell us why you vouched for this girl?" Dean asked.  
"Because she has a pure soul. And I recognized her grace" It took a second for that one to sink into the group. "wait, your saying she has soul and grace?" Sam asked incredulously? Than he realized she was sitting right there and looked guilty and said "sorry". She favored him with a big smile that made his heart warm up, than made him wonder why a girl he had just met make him feel like he was back in junior high again. "that's ok, I am rather unique" Myka said with an amused voice. "so what about her grace did you recognize Cas?" Dean asked, still looking at his angel. Cas looked at Myka and said "perhaps it would be best if you introduced your trueself." His words made both Dean and Sam's eyebrows go way up and touch their hair lines. And Charlie winced and said. "I told you Cas was direct". To which Dean looked at her and said "you know all this already I presume" Charlie huffed and said "of course." "of course" Dean repeated sarcastically, and took a drink of his beer.  
So Myka stood up and introduced herself, full elf style. "I am Mykalia Amym Dorthore, princess and protector of the elvish city of Theathas. Daughter of Queen Alannaes Amym Dorthore, and the angel Gabriel. I am here to help rid this realm of the dark elven queen, Fs Serin. She fled to this realm Last spring, according to your calendar, but we didn't know where or when she fled to until recently we found proof of her skills being used in the place where we first met, where she used her power and influence to test the strength of the warriors of this realm, you, by uniting a group of monsters against you. And see how far it would be allowed to go. I give to you my trueform so you can see my intentions are honorable. I had no intention of hiding my self from you, but your were so worn down during our fight that I thought it would be better if you were well rested before we were introduced."  
During her speech she had allowed her glamor spell to recede and her trueform to show. The features of her glamor faded, blurred and than were replaced. If Sam thought he was stunned by her beauty before. He decided he definitely didn't know a damn thing. Her eyes had enlarged very slightly, surrounded by thick black lashes, her skin still pale and her hair black as a ravens wing, went down to her ass in thick waves. Her form didn't change shape or size except, maybe to become even more slender and graceful. But what really took the cake was the wings. The same color as her hair with shimmering greens the same as her eyes when they moved. While she stood 5 foot 8, each wing was easily 5 feet long and they rose from her shoulder blades to the top of her ears to bend and go down to the floor. "oh," thought Sam faintly, "her ears". Her ears were dainty and tapered to a sharp point about 2 inches before the top of her head. Sam knew at that moment he was lost. "Sam" Dean hissed, "stop drooling". Sam jumped and wiped his bottom lip, coming back with no drool of course and he glared at Dean who was snickering with a glint in his eyes.

Cas Saw Gabriel's daughters soul and was impressed. It was indeed very beautiful. And he was very glad Sam was able to sense it. She would be good for him. How he knew this he wasn't sure. But he just shrugged and watched Dean as he teased Sam about his interest. He was very happy they were able to begin bonding again. They seemed determined to make a fresh start. Perhaps, he mused it was the trial of Dean becoming a demon and Sam doing what he had to do to bring him back and cure him. He would be forever grateful to Sam for bringing deans soul back to its pure righteous state, even if it had set his self esteem and self hatred back quite a bit. That was heal-able. And it was all dependent on the relationship that the brothers had. It had been Gabriel, interestingly enough that had showed Castiel the truth of the bond between the brothers. Well perhaps the cupid they had summoned had started the seed. But how Castiel hadn't seen it, especially in the light of the apocalypse they had averted. The brothers were the most rare of souls. Twins and soul mates. Only one other set was known to exist. And that was Lucifer and Michael.  
Which, in Castiel's opinion was why Michael had pushed for the damn thing to happen to begin with. Because that was the only way Michael could have been reunited with his brother and personally Castiel thought Michael went a little insane when Lucifer was locked away. He laughed at himself and his thoughts. Before Dean Winchester, he would never have entertained those thoughts.  
Well God hasn't struck him dead yet, and, in fact saved him several times, so as far as Castiel is concerned the thoughts could be entertained. Cas watched as Myka put the glamor partially back together, just enough to hide the wings and lock them down, just outside of this dimension, much like Cas's were, when he was full angel of course, so as to not be seen or interfere with objects. It just wasn't convenient to be knocking over chairs with your wings as you walked around. He sighed a little and allowed himself just a tiny moment of sorrow for the fact that he was currently losing his wings, (again). Myka heard him and gave him a half smile of sympathy. Castiel watched as Sam finally regained control of his brain and legs and offered to give Myka a tour of the bunker and Dean caught Castiel's gaze and jerked his head toward the kitchen. Castiel nodded and followed while Charlie followed him.  
"Well?' Dean rounded on the two of them as they entered the kitchen. "well what?" Charlie asked. "She's gonna be a great member of team free will! And she's a better fighter than you, Sam and Castiel put together, no offense, Cas." "none taken Charlie," Cas replied. Dean looked at Cas and seemed to be searching his eyes for something. Cas sent out waves of reassurance thru their bond and Dean accepted it. "ok, so she is a great fighter," he admitted. "damn good. Took out at least 45 vamps by her self". "ya dean, sorry I didn't know about that or I would have let you know over the phone who she was." charlie said dejectedly. Than she brightened. " on the plus side. Sam REALLY seems to like her huh?" She winked at Dean and wiggled her eyebrows. Dean looked at her and growled. "If she hurts him so help me I don't care how good of a fighter she is"... Dean let the threat trail off and Charlie actually giggled again, then sat down to eat a cookie she had swiped from the oreos on the counter.  
Cas actually smiled at that one. Than some thing occurred to Dean as he thought back on her introduction of herself. "wait," he looked at Cas, surprise in his eyes, "did she say her father was Gabriel, as in the trickster who got killed protecting us, Gabriel?" Charlies eyes widened at that, "oh that's right I missed that part, to busy watching Sam's jaw scrape the floor." "it was not actually scraping the floor Charlie." Cas began. Dean just gave him a look and Cas said "oh." and smiled, sort of.  
"Actually my father is with my mother in the faye realm where she pulled him just before his grace perished and mixed with the universe. It was a very exhausting spell and we would not have pulled it off if the All Father had not helped us." Myka had just walked in with Sam, who acted like he already knew this part. He went over to the fridge and pulled out the OJ and pored her a glass of it and got him a beer. Myka thanked him with a smile as she sat down in a chair. Sam leaned back on the counter and drank his beer, Dean noticed his eyes, never left Myka. Dean rolled his eyes and asked Myka. "so hows the ass hat doing?" Myka laughed, Dean noticed it was kinda pretty and looked at Sam who was still looking at Myka. Dean snorted and went for another beer, walking on Sams toes. Sam frowned at Dean who glared right back. But at least Sam got the idea and started acting like himself again. "That's where I've heard your accent before!" Sam exclaimed. "The fairy we helped with charlie!" Dean's eyes widened a bit. "oh! That's right!" he said. "that was my aunt," Myka replied. "she sends her thanks and appreciation by the way"  
My father is still weak but he is getting better" She continued to say, then she paused and chuckled. "he wants to know if you and your boyfriend have finally gotten past the eye sex." Dean choked on his beer, Sam snickered and Charlie put her head on the table, but her shoulders were shaking very hard. "Dean doesn't have a boyfriend..." Cas began. "Cas shut up" Dean said, as he cleaned up the beer on his shirt. Myka silently sent her father a stern "That is the last time I ask a question for you" thought, and kept her mouth shut. She knew all about what her father had meant. And she had actually promised to find out why Cas and Dean had not become a "couple" yet for him but she had to get to know these people first. She really doubted that her trying to play match maker after the first day would go over well, and besides, that wasn't her job, just something she told her dad she would gather intel on. Although why her dad cared was beyond her.  
"So he asked you to relay that question to us huh" Dean said after a moment while every one pulled themselves back to together. "yes" she said quietly. "I apologize if it was inappropriate. He wouldn't tell me why he wished to know". "That's alright Myka" Sam said after a sec. "it just proved to us that your dad really is Gabriel." another snicker. "Well, if Myka's gonna be here a bit, lets get her a room, Charlie you staying?" Dean asked to change the subject. "wouldn't miss this for the world" Charlie stated firmly. Dean shrugged. "your room is still yours" Charlie beamed at the man and gave him a hug. "Charlie and Sam showed Myka her room and left Dean and Cas alone in the kitchen. "There's room for you too Cas if you need a place." Dean said after a moment. "Thank you Dean, perhaps I will stay. I am beginning to feel the need for sleep again." Dean gave Cas a worried look, "your saving your mojo right?" he asked, just to be sure. "Yes Dean, I am saving my 'mojo'" Cas said with a small smile. "good night Dean" "Good night Cas."

A week had passed and they still had no idea where to look to find this new "monster". The Elf Queen it seemed had been defeated in the fae realm after a huge cataclysmic fight that Myka had been a huge part of. She was her Mother's First, so the General in charge of the war. (Sam was impressed and talked lore and strategy with her for a full night when she had told them) Dean, for one was happy she was so practical about it. There had been none of the self importance that he'd come to expect from the dick angels. He kept reminding himself she was only half angel and to be honest, he really wouldn't have known if she hadn't told them.  
Dean still didn't know what to think about her up front attitude though. She had her secrets and if they broached a subject she didn't want to discuss, she just said, "I do not wish to discuss that at this time". The first time it happened, was when they asked about something to do with her family, he couldn't really remember what it was. Of course he had been a dick about it and yelled. She simply lifted her right eyebrow and said, "that is not relevant to the situation here and I do not know you well enough to speak of something so personal yet." Well they all had their secrets. And Dean had sat and stared at her. Straight forward honesty was just to much for someone who had lived a life keeping secrets from everyone, including himself. "huh," he thought and then Sam changed the subject.  
Myka sought out Dean later on that night. "Dean," She said softly, ("does she ever raise her voice?") Dean wondered. "I do not wish there to be any hostility between us, I am sorry if I offended you in any way and I do want you to know, no matter how personal I feel something is, IF it pertains to the situation at hand, I will tell you,". Dean of course did his usual thing. "uh sure, no problem. I get it, no harm no fowl." Myka's forehead creased for a sec as she looked at him, than smiled and went back out into the living room where Sam and Charlie were researching books that the bunker had on Elves.  
Turns out, there wasn't that much so all of Myka's knowledge was being put into the data base that Sam had begun. Sam showed Myka how to use a computer the second day and she had become pretty good at it.  
Cas had gone to follow a lead with Hanna on his grace two days ago and as they drove to Florida, Hanna kept looking sideways at Cas. "what is on your mind Hanna?" Cas asked her. Hanna looked at him again and sighed, a very human gesture, considering she didn't even have to breath. She must have picked it up from him, Cas mused to himself. "great, another angel I have corrupted due to just being with me". He thought to him self, bemusedly.  
Hanna pulled over to speak to Cas about this issue she had been struggling with. She didn't know how he would react to her question and she knew from watching humans that distracted driving caused issues and with Cas be coming human again a crash could hurt him. She didn't understand why he had done what all he had, but his heart was pure right now. So she would speak of it now.  
"you care a great deal for your human, Dean Winchester do you not?" Cas looked at her for a moment and simply said, "yes, of course, you know this" Hanna took a deep breath and pushed forward. "you love him, yes?". Cas sighed and looked out the window. "what are you getting at Hanna?" "Why do you not tell him? You may never get your grace back, and obviously God approves or he would not keep bringing you back." She asked. Cas looked back at her sharply. "my love for Dean comes from our friendship and is purely platonic. We are brothers in arms, family. He knows."  
Hanna looked at Cas for a long time, surprised. She could tell he was speaking the truth. But he really didn't get it. She frowned in confusion. "how is it that I, as an angel with little experience with human emotion can see yet Cas cannot see the truth that is right in front of him?" She thought to her self.. So she asked a different question. "Cas do you remember the angels we were looking for that had become quite close? The ones by the river?" She waited while he closed his eyes briefly in pain as he remembered the pain of having to kill them. "yes, Hanna I remember them of course, my grace is fading, not my memory. Whats your point?" Cas said this a bit more sharply than he intended, and looked at Hanna briefly in quiet apology. She gave him a quick smile. "bare with me Castiel, this is not my job normally." She took a quick breath. "Do you recall how they were about each other? How they would do anything for each other? How they Fell for each other?"  
Cas gave Hanna an unfathomable look. "They didn't just love each other they way we are made to love all things Castiel, They were IN love with each other, the way humans feel." She held her breath as she waited for Cas to think this thru. "so you think I am in love with Dean, romantically?" He asked carefully. Hanna just smiled at Cas and pulled back onto the road. Cas looked out the window thoughtfully.  
Castiel thought about what Hanna had told him, He carefully thought about what he had been thru, and done over the last seven years. Why had it been his garrison that had been chosen to save the Righteous man? Now that he thought about it, He could name several garrisons that had been more capable of that feat than his. And now that he thought about it, when he had found Dean, Urial had been the one to grab him first, and Dean had fought with the strength of a hundred men to get away from that angel. (not that Cas blamed him,) but when he had approached Dean, the Soul had actually reached for him, like it had recognized him. He had noticed it, of course but only briefly and forgotten it in the fight back to earth.  
Castiel remembered back to a fight he had once had with Dean, " I fell for you, I rebelled, for you! Everything I have done, I did FOR YOU!" He glanced over at Hanna again. She was concentrating on her driving, completely ignoring him now. Was he in love with Dean? He thought about that for quite a while. But than reality set in. "Even if you were right," He said out loud for Hanna's benefit. "it would hardly matter, Dean does not even consider me in that way, he is very vocal about desiring female companionship. I have never seen him desire another male in the entire time I have known him. He tells me we are family. Never once has he told me he loves me." Hanna just looked at him and sighed. They continued on in silence.  
And when the lead turned out to be a trap from some rogue angels, and they barely escaped with their lives, Castiel mortally wounded, Hanna actually smiled sadly as He asked her to take him back to Dean, not the bunker, for help. She healed him best she could and headed back as fast as she could. Taking time at night to heal Castiel's vessel the best she could from the new wounds. She used the phone to call Dean and let him know the situation. He acted angry, worried and just told her to hurry up in the end.

"Sammy!" Sam came running at Deans shout. "What is it? Whats wrong?" Sam asked. Dean actually looked scared. Sam hadn't seen that particular look on Deans face for a very long time. "Cas is hurt bad! Hanna's bringing him back to the bunker, but they both got hit with some sort of weapon that steals angel grace. Hanna's stopping at hotel's during the night to heal Cas but she got hit to and has to go slow until her grace recharges!" Myka came around the corner about then and said. "Steals Angels grace? What could do that?" Dean just stalked back to get Cas's room ready. Sam looked at Myka after he disappeared. "we have no idea," He looked at Myka and asked, "research?" She nodded and looked after Dean thoughtfully. "I will look at my books to see if I have anything that will help, I am not the first elf/angel hybrid from my realm, perhaps also My mother's Word Keeper will be able to help as well" Sam just hugged her in thanks and ran off to the library. Myka smiled, Sam was definitely a hugger. She went to her bag and took the crystal from it. Some chalk, (wonderful creation that the realm didn't have) she thought to her self. And a sigil here and there and she sat down in the middle of her marks and concentrated on contacting the Word Keeper.  
Dean was damn worried, His angel had gotten his ass kicked, again! "damn it cas, how could you be so damn careless!" Now all there was to do was wait. And it was killing him. He didn't delve to deeply as to why he was so worried. Well frantic if any one else had to describe his behavior but Dean Winchester didn't do frantic. He went to the study, a room off of the library hiding the dungeon. He needed to think and it was quiet, no one had found it yet but him..  
As he rounded the corner, he heard voices coming from the study. "damn it!" he thought this was his room! he felt an irrational surge of anger and started forward to confront who ever it was. (even though he knew it could only be one of three people) He stopped short when he recognized a certain angels voice. "no f**ing way!" Now Dean knew Gabe was alive, Myka had told them that, but hearing his voice made all the anger issues regarding him come to the surface, Then reflex jumped in and he snuck up to the door way to hear what was being discussed..  
"I'm sorry pip squeek, I have never heard of anything that could drain an angels grace like the way you've described. I mean Metatron stole poor baby bro's grace with an angel blade to the throat, and Balthazar destroyed the obsidian orb that converted grace to power, I was there for that one! Took all five of us a millennium to recover from the blast of that thing. I swear why Dad made some of the things he did is beyond me.." Dean actually felt a quick bit of humor from hearing Gabriel being all fond and fatherly of some one. Than peaked in the door. He gasped involuntary at what he saw.  
Myka was sitting cross legged with her back to the door. But she was floating about a foot off the floor. In front of her was an electric blue crystal where Gabe's voice was coming from. There was some sigil's around her and Deans fine hairs on the back of his head stood up from the faint electricity in the air and the smell of ozone. "oh! So that's what she meant about being in contact with her family" he thought idly.  
Than another, lighter voice came out of the crystal, "Princess, I do have a thought on something that could do this" "please proceed work keeper" Myka said. "she's using the same tone as when she introduced her self" Dean thought, he decided to call it her "royal tone" and smirked at his own wit.  
"Perhaps your companion could come join us instead of sulking on the edges of the transmission like some sort of spy." The Lighter voice said sarcastically. Myka looked behind her as Dean cleared his throat in embarrassment at being caught. "damn, I've gotten careless" he thought.  
"Yes Deano! Come join us! I haven't seen you in ages! My how you've grown! That whole deanmon thing just didn't do you justice!" Gabrial's voice said cheerily. "Suck it ass hat" Dean grumbled, still irritated at being caught. Myka just said "Dad, really?" softly and Gabe's voice stopped. "Shoes and socks off, Dean please, before you come into the circle" Myka requested. Dean complied and sat beside Myka's floating form gingerly.  
"So what's this idea you have?" Dean asked as he sat down. When he received no reply, he looked at Myka and raised his eyebrows in question. "The word keeper makes a vow of silence to all but the royal family once he takes office. He will answer no one but me during this interview" She said. Dean shrugged and mouthed "well ladedada" Myka snickered a bit, than, to Deans amusement, repeated his question verbatim.  
"There is a blade that absorbs the life force of whom ever it touches, and since this 'grace' is essentially an angels life force, that could explain why this Hanna angel has to recover her grace slowly and why the Castiel angel lost so much of his stolen grace" The word keeper said. Dean heard a sound from Gabriel he had only heard once, when he decided to fight for them during the time the dimi gods had kidnapped them. It wasn't a good sound.  
Myka's groan didn't make him feel any better. "A leach blade". In the silence Dean said in a deadly quiet voice. "Leach blade? What the hell is a leach blade?" when he got no answer he got louder and more angry "Gabriel?, Myka? Anyone?.. Hay!" he finally yelled, furious. "what the HELL is a LEACH BLADE?" Myka looked at him and started to say something when Gabe beat her to it. "a leach blade is a be-spelled blade that sucks and stores life force, any life force that it touches, it has no limit to how much it can hold and only the one that be-spelled it can use either the blade or the life force inside it." Gabriel's serious tone scared Dean more than the information itself. "and if that is what got to Cas and Hanna?" he asked quietly. Myka looked at Dean with a very sad look in her eyes. Hanna will recover since she didn't loose all of her grace to the blade." Dean felt a cold shaft of fear shoot thru him from head to toe. "and Cas?" Myka looked down, a tear fell onto the wood floor. "Cas's grace is not his own, so when he was touched by the blade, it began a cascade effect that is destroying Cas's body on a molecular level that will continue regardless of if the blade is destroyed or not." Gabe said quietly. Dean heard a gasp of horror behind him and turned to see Sam and Charlie looking at him in fear. Charlie started to cry quietly and Sam just stared at him, eyes bright with un shed tears.  
"Not going to happen!" Dean heard him self say using his most no nonsense, stern voice. After the shock of the news, he steeled himself and did what he did best. Denied even the idea that he could loose Cas forever, again. He drew himself up straight and tall, "how much time do we have?" Myka looked at him and said, "well Hanna is healing his body during the stops at night, correct?" Dean nodded. Myka asked the crystal, "Word Keeper?" "well depending on how long the blade was in contact with the said angel and how weak he already was, with the Hanna angel healing the body, perhaps a lunar cycle?"  
"Great!" Dean said briskly, " a month! We have a month to figure out how to save Cas" Charlie and Sam both took deep breaths and nodded. Sam said. "we came to find you to tell you that we found a small section on faye folk in the men of letters library, i'll start there." Charlie nodded and said, "the fary lady we saved gave me a favor when she left. Told me to keep it until I needed something I couldn't live without. I'll use it and ask for her help". Dean gave her a big hug and tried to will her to feel how much it meant to him that she would do that for him. She just looked at him and smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "We'll save your angel my friend, that's what family does." He felt a small jerk in his stomach when she said "Your angel". And gave her a questioning look. She just smiled like she did when he was being stubborn about something and bounced out to get her things.  
Sam left for the Library and left Dean and Myka alone with the crystal again. "Dean?" Gabriel's voice said softly. Dean looked at the crystal in surprise, he hadn't heard the angel use that tone of voice before.. "we will do everything we can on this end to find information that can help you and even try to make a new spell if need be. I know how much he means to you." Before Dean could even think up a wise as crack for that tid bit. Gabriel said his good byes to Myka and they ended the spell. Myka turned to Dean after the end of spell clean up, who was still standing in shock at what had just transpired. "This is what you do for someone you love. We will do our best." She patted him on the shoulder and left dean to his own thoughts. Dean stood there quietly for a moment more and than walked out to help Sam, and find the scotch. Cas was family, of course they would do all they can. But what if they failed? What if Dean failed Cas again? How could he survive if he lost Cas again? Dean sighed and pushed that thought away so he didn't have to examine the feelings that brought too close to the surface.  
Sam looked up as he came to the table and pushed a book over to him with a sad smile. Dean sat down with a grunt of thanks and picked it up and opened it to the first page. Elven weapons and lore. Dean sighed and sat down, prepared for a night of research.

She pulled the blade out of the demon that she had strung up and stuck it into the huge crystal behind her with a patient sigh. Her long slender fingers flicked away the blood on her coat. She tossed her long red braid back over her shoulder and looked at the demons cowering behind the latest victim.  
" I trust the lesson is learned?" she asked carefully of each of the ten that stood before her. The nodded quietly, fear in their eyes plain. She flicked her fingers toward the corpse and two goules rushed to dispose of the body.  
Serin looked over her cronies carefully. "the next time anyone allows another of my victims to escape, they will be punished twice as much, and the punishment will grow exponentially, this demon was lucky in that she was the first to fail me." Her violet eyes sparked with energy. "yes mistress" they said in unison.  
Serin dismissed them with a turn of her back to them. She began to re arrange her plans. The angels could be problematic once those two returned to heaven, although the male had a grace that did not belong to him so he may not even make it to heaven. That grace was touchy stuff, as long as the grace matched the angel it could regrow no matter how little of it was left, but borrowed grace? It tore the vessel it was in into pieces and there was nothing the angel could do about it. She allowed herself a full, loud laugh at the male angel. She was curious as to how he had lost his given grace but not enough to bother looking for him to ask.  
She gave the order to move to a different base. Her scouts had found another large pool of fallen grace in some place the humans called north Dakota. It wouldn't harm her plans to leave the remaining fallen grace here. It was just a trickle anyway, not enough to worry about.  
She had plenty of time.

Sam re-read the same sentence for the thousandth time before he sighed and gave up for the moment. He looked at Dean who hadn't moved except to flip the pages of the book he was reading. Sam watched as he moved his lips while he read and chuckled to himself. Dean looked up to see Sam staring at him with a half smile. "what?" he asked.. Sam smiled and shook his head. "nothing," he replied. "just.."he paused. "Crowley was right, you do move your lips when you read." Dean looked surprised for a second, than threw an oreo at him. "bitch". "jerk" Sam said automaticly.  
He sighed again and looked at Dean. "what are we going to do Dean?" he asked quietly. "if we cant save Cas I mean" Dean shut the book with a slam and pointed his finger at Sam. "Don't!" he shouted as he jumped up. "Don't even go there!" his voice cracked with emotion. "we are going to save him! There is no other choice. I will not fail someone else that I L-care about!"  
Sam looked at him with a sad smile. "Dean, we all know that you love him, but if we can't save him, you might need to accept that and also accept that it's not your fault!" Sam leaned forward earnestly, trying to express this to his brother with all his soul. Dean looked at him and away and then back to him again in a double take.  
"what are you?- of course I uh do, he's family, same as you Sammy." His voice quivered. Sam shook his head. Look, with everything that's going on, I was keeping quiet about it because you obviously needed time, but you may not have it with him ya' know?" Sam looked at Dean. "you are IN love with Cas, Dean." "Its alright! Im not judging, i'm just saying.." Dean interrupted Sam with a growl. "What? No! Its not, its not like that! Geez Sam! He's like a brother to me! He's my best friend, next to you! That's all!" Sam started to say something but Dean plowed on, barely taking a breath. "Hello Sam! Ladies man here, remember? Your the one always saying how much of a slut I am remember?" He laughed humorlessly. "Cas and me we're just friends, I mean, sure the guy has a thing about personal space and all. But if you remember, the first thing he did as a human was bone some chick!" He took a huge drink of scotch and sat down heavily in the chair. And laughed, a little to loud he thought to him self. "no Sam you got the wrong idea about us, I mean even if I.. Cas isn't.. No. We're just family. And that's all." He pointed a finger sternly at Sam. "Just you get that shit out of your head." Dean got up and downed the rest of his scotch. His fourth glass with in twenty minutes Sam noticed.  
Sam lifted his hands up in a placating gesture. "ok sorry. I'll just get back to work over here."  
"you do that Sam." Dean growled. "I'm beat, its like three in the morning, I need my four hours of sleep." and with that He stomped out of the library and down to his room. Sam heard the door slam. Sam shook his head and sighed. Myka stood up from the chair she had been quietly watching the conversation from and sat down across from Sam, who looked up in surprise. " I forgot you where here." he said quietly. She looked at him thoughtfully and then down to where Dean had disappeared.  
That night after Dean finally went to bed. He laid under the covers thinking about what had happened over the last week or so. And about what Sam said. There is no way Sam was right. He's not gay. Not a bit. Never found a guy to be attractive at all. He sighed and even went back thru his memories, Cas was Cas, Dean hit his pillow a few times and tried to go to sleep. After a few minutes his eyes flew open again. He sat up on the edge of the bed and ran his hand thru his hair. "There is no way Sam is right" he thought defiantly. "none." But now he wasn't so sure. After what Gabe had said to him, then there's all those other dick angels and even the demons who had made wise ass remarks about it. Than there was the damn musical and all that subtext. "god damn subtext." Dean growled. "who even invented subtext anyway" Dean threw himself back on the bed on his back and stared up at the ceiling.  
Dean sighed and thought about Cas, Cas who was hurt, and Hanna having to heal him every night because his body kept falling apart. Cas who had saved him from hell, Cas who had fallen for him, Dean remembered that time Cas had gotten fed up with his temper tantrums and told him that He had been the reason Cas had fallen, strictly for him. Then all they had been thru in purgatory. Hell even Benny had made some comments about how close he and Cas were. Nothing vulgar mind you, but he had noticed. So Dean took a deep breath and really thought about Cas for a moment. His black hair, his blue eyes, permanent stubble, He imagined his body... Nothing. In fact, he even imagined Kissing Cas, (in the deepest darkest privacy of his own mind) and actually, he got real uncomfortable at that. Like, sweating and nerves and wow! Dean shot back up off of his back, breathing hard. He didn't even know why. But thinking about anything that could lead to sex with Cas freaked him out huge! "nope, told you Sammy." Dean muttered to himself as he got back into bed after he calmed himself down. "Cas is just a friend, he's family." As he fell into an uneasy sleep, it occurred to him. He has no problem thinking about Charlie, or working with any other gay guys, hell, They knew several gay hunters. In fact there was that one that kept hitting on Sam in New Mexico.. So why was he so gun shy of thinking about Cas that way?  
Dean fell into a restless sleep where he began to dream of Hell again, flash backs and images. "Im just dreaming." He'd tell him self. "Are you sure about that?" a familiar voice said behind him. Dean tried to look around but found himself trussed up, face down on the rack again. "No!" he whispered in fear. Azazel walked around to where Dean could see him. "oh Dean my wonderful soul." Azazel hissed to him. "For twenty eight years we have done wonderful things together" and for twenty eight years you have shoved my generous offer in my face." Dean struggled to get up, to face Azazel. "Im dreaming, this is just a nightmare, Cas got me out." Dean repeated this mantra to himself over and over again. He began to cry quietly. He knew what was next. What had finally broken him. "Please, someone wake me up." Azazel just laughed his horrible, evil laugh.

Myka looked back at Sam thoughtfully. "Dean and Cas?" she asked quietly. Sam just sighed. "they are the only ones that haven't figured it out. Not that the whole supernatural community hasn't made mention of it." Sam laughed quietly. "Hell anyone who has read chucks books knows about it." Sam told her about the musical they had seen some time ago. "It was after that musical, that I started to wonder about it. Cas makes him happy. And after all that we have been thru, I'd really like to see my big brother happy again, ya know? But I just don't get it. Neither one of us have any issue with that kind of life style. Look at Charlie! Dean adores her, thinks of her as little sister, we both do.." He stopped and ran his fingers thru his hair in frustration with a sigh. "sorry, family drama huh?" he gave a wry laugh.  
Myka just looked at him like she was thinking hard about something. She leaned back in the seat and propped her feet up on the table. "Dean went to hell for you right?" She asked all of a sudden.  
Sam frowned at the sudden switch in conversation. "Ya, I told you the story, remember?" Myka didn't react just looked at him for a while. Than put her feet down with a sigh and a look on her face like she'd just made a decision. "what we speak of next does not leave this table, do you understand?" Sam just nodded. "Im serious Sam, not a peep. No change in behavior nothing!" Sam frowned again. Not liking the way this was going. But curiosity got the best of him any way and even though he had promised Dean no more secrets...  
"Sure Myka, not a word. Promise." Myka gave Sam another measuring look and said. "ok, bare with me here. Why does your military not want to allow women on the front lines, in the thick of the battles?" Sam shrugged, Not expecting that particular question. "i don't know, a hold over from the days when women were considered second class citizens?" Myka shook her head and asked a different question. "Dean was being tortured for thirty years before he broke and climbed off the rack to begin the torture right?" Sam nodded. "and before he was dragged to hell, you guys were tortured. Before right?" Sam nodded again. "so what could the demon have done differently, that finally, after thirty years, that would have made a stubborn, strong willed, manly guy like Dean, decide he couldn't take it any more and start torturing other souls, AND destroy his self esteem the way it did?" Myka looked at Sam while he thought about both of her questions for a full five minutes. Sam sighed and looked at Myka. Maybe im just tired but, I don't think him breaking after thirty years is so weird. I seriously doubt I would have lasted that long. I went insane and Cas had to take my place when I came back. I mean really Myka, I was a mess, and that was with Michael and Adam in there with me so I didn't have all Lucifers attention." Myka sighed and shook her head. "Think harder Sam, what is the one fear a woman has about being tortured by a man." Myka emphasized the words woman and man to stress a point. "no means no?" she said. Sam blanched all of a sudden as realization hit. "and if a human can think to do that to another human, where could a demon take that?" Myka said quietly as Sams eyes filled up with tears for his brothers sake.  
Right about then, they heard Dean scream.  
Sam got up, knocking over his beer in his hurry, and sprinted to Dean door. Myka right behind him. Dean screamed again. It was so full of pain and agony that Sam's chest tightened down and he couldn't breath. Sam opened the door, thanking everything he could think of that Dean hadn't locked it and ran into the room. Dean was cowering in the corner of his room in his boxers and a t-shirt soaked in sweat, eyes wide but not seeing anything around him. Sam knew with all his heart Dean was back in hell, He hadn't had that particular night mare in a few weeks and Sam had a sinking feeling this one was his fault. Dean whimpered again, sounding broken. And curled up, head on his knees, arms hugging his legs, trembling so hard, Sam was afraid he would vibrate apart. "Dean!" he called urgently. "Dean! Wake up! Its just a dream!" Sam didn't try to touch him, just called to him. Over and over again. Myka handed him a bowl of cool water and a wash cloth. After what seemed like forever, Dean finally moaned "Sammy?" "ya big brother! Its me. Wake up big bro. Your dreaming!" Dean shook his head. "Just a dream." he kept repeating to himself. "ya dean, just a dream," Sam reached out and touched his hand gently and had to keep from crying when Dean yanked it away and said. "don't touch me!"  
After twenty long minutes, Sam coaxed Dean up and into the shower. Sleep was not an option again and they both knew it. So Sam left his brother to his shower and changed his sheets and blankets for him while Dean was in the shower. Just before he left, he listened at the door and thought he heard a strangled sob come from the shower. Sam's heart broke at that sound as he left and shut the door quietly. He vowed never to broach the subject of him and Cas, to Dean again,, Ever.

Three days latter Hanna called to tell the guys that they were almost there. The complete absence of news about Cas's condition worried all of them as they went outside to wait for her. Dean looked like hell, he'd been surviving on coffee and short cat naps that Myka had 'inhanced' with out Deans knowledge. Sam knew of course. Myka told him what she was going to do because, as she put it. "when, not if, Dean finds out, it will not make him as mad if he knew that you knew about it and were keeping an eye on us" Sam agreed that was probably for the best.

When Hanna helped Cas into the bunker and onto his bed, the first thing that Sam and Dean noticed was Cas looked transparent almost. Hanna told them that the damage was worse than she thought and when they explained to her what they had discovered, she took the news gravely. "that makes sense," Hanna said, looking at Cas. "I didn't know what was wrong with that knife but it just barley nicked me in the arm and Cas got a cut on his hand. This type of damage couldn't be done with any weapon I know about." Dean stayed to get Cas "more comfortable" and every one took the hint and left them to it.  
"Do you at least know what the Queen wants?" Myka asked Hanna. "We did not speak to a Queen, just a demon." Hanna stated. "But the demon did mention something about 'power from life force' and that when they were done there with what ever it was that it's boss was looking for, they would move on and start again.".. Sam swore softly. "damn and it's been so quiet. I knew it wouldn't last". Myka looked at Sam and said thoughtfully, "You know, part of the Queens ability's in the faye realm was to control the monsters, perhaps that is why it's been so quiet"  
Sam thought for a second and said, "i don't know, but I bet I know someone who would know."  
Sam headed for the dungeon, stopping on the way for some spell ingredients. Myka followed him, holding items for Sam. Sam smiled a thank you to her and bent down to prepare the summoning spell. Sam felt what seemed like static around him and looked up to see Myka pulling her glamor around her tightly and for the first time since she had showed up at the bunker, she looked human. Sam actually decided he missed her trueform already. Myka smiled down at him as though she knew what he was thinking. He blushed and concentrated on his work.  
"Hello moose!" Crowley looked around at where he was and sighed. "where's the love?" he asked sadly, "after all we've been thru together, don't I deserve a little respect? Really Moose, back in the dungeon again?" "Shut up Crowley," Sam said, to tired to banter even a little bit. " I suspect you already know why I called you" Crowley looked at Myka and completely ignored Sam for the moment. "well hello little bit! Arnt you a scrumptious little nugget! Care to make a deal? I can get you anything you like, for a fair price of course." He wiggled his eyebrows at her enticingly. Sam stopped himself just short of interrupting and yelling at Crowley, He had seen Myka fight, now he looked at her and waited for her to respond.  
She looked at Crowley and let a little pity leak onto her expression. "I am so sorry, Mr Crowley, but there is nothing that you can give me, that I would want, that I cannot get for myself. Your offer is worthless to me." She crossed her arms and looked very sad and sorry for Crowley. Crowley's mouth dropped. "is she serious?" Now he looked at Sam. Sam shrugged, "I guess your not as important as you thought" "is she pitying me? Me? The King of Hell? Pity? Seriously?" Sam laughed out loud. That seemed to get to Crowley more than anything. Crowley looked at Sam and frowned. "what do you want moose?" He growled, keeping his eyes on Myka, Sam could hear the wheels grinding. He dropped the smirk and went straight to business mode. " There is a new player in town, and we want to know everything there is to know about her. Why she's here, What she wants. She is calling herself Serin." Crowley looked at Sam now, and sneered. "and what do I get out of it?"  
Sam opened his mouth to speak and then he felt that static feeling again. Crowley's eyes popped out and his mouth dropped and he looked afraid for just a second before he locked up his emotions and facial expressions. "you get to live and continue to act as king of hell." Myka's voice took on what Dean was calling her "royal voice" Sam spared a look and than stared. Myka had let her full glamor go and she was in full trueform, wings and all. Plus, Sam did a double take, she was glowing! Sam looked at Crowley who's face was now a mask.  
"All I know is she comes from the dark faye's land and has found something here that she is gathering up all around the country and storing in a big fancy rock. I am trying to find out what it is but I am finding it very hard to put spys in her entourage as she seems to have a knack for finding them and draining their essence, although, now that I see you, I understand why. I shall have to plan accordingly." Crowley was, wait, was he hiding behind him? Sam thought incredulously. Crowley spotted Sam watching him and made a face at him and stood up taller. Myka walked right up to him, Sam started to warn her from crossing the devils trap and the warning faded as, incredibly, Crowley backed up to the edge to the trap and stopped, stuck while Myka put a finger on his chest. Crowley winced and closed both eyes. "you will report everything to me or the Winchesters the moment you find out anything new, you will not double cross or triple cross or any kind of cross this team do you understand? And in return you will be allowed to live. Those are my terms. Agreed?" Crowley nodded and Myka stepped away from him. "there is the matter of sealing the deal.." Crowley began. When Myka looked back at him he continued. "but I think this once we can deal with just our word as our bond yes?" Myka smiled a huge smile at him and left Sam with Crowley.  
"Women, eh Sam?" Crowley let out a shaky laugh. "Well if you will just let me go, I'll get right to work. Never a moment to waste, eh, moose?" Bemused, Sam covered the edge of the demon trap with his foot and Crowley disappeared. "wow, learn something new every day." Sam mused. Sam turned out the light after cleaning up and left to find out how Cas was doing.

Myka left mentally shuddering as she replaced her half glamor to hide her wings. Dealing with upper level demons was so distasteful. It left a taste in her mouth that made her gag. She went to the kitchen and cracked open a beer, hoping to remove the taste of his presence from her mouth. But it didn't seem to work. "So what was all that about?" Sam asked. Myka shook herself out of her thoughts as he came in looking at her. "i have never seen Crowley look like that before, or for that matter, not have anything witty to say." Myka took another swig of her beer. "certain faye have the ability to make a demon feel, everything they have made others feel. Since the lack of ability to feel pain, and anguish, such as the souls they torture feel is fundamental to a demons enjoyment of life, to feel what they inflect on others would be worse than death for a demon. And these faye can lock them into an endless loop. It is the ultimate torture for a demon, only to end in true death, their energy would be absorbed by the universe, purified and recycled. For some reason, that is even more frightening to the demons, don't ask me why, since they wouldn't have any memories of it. But for those reasons, and of course rumor and legend making it worse. Just the sight of one of us is enough to make a demon wet themselves." Sam thought about that and let out a laugh. "are you one of those certain faye?" Myka smiled, "of course. Its a royal ability. Comes with the ability to heal the soul."

Sam looked startled for a moment. "you can heal souls?" Myka nodded slowly. "could you heal Deans soul?" Sam breathed. Myka smiled. "why do you think I told you to lay off your brother and Cas, Sam? But this type of thing takes a lot of time and usually we would be alone, in a relaxing and non threatening place that was warded against night mares and memories." Sam nodded, not quite understanding, but willing to have faith. "just be patient with me Sam, and with Dean. And know that healing Deans soul may not end up the way you envisioned." with that, Myka left to find Charlie Leaving Sam to his own thoughts.  
Dean watched everyone leave and turned to Cas. Hanna had healed him once they had laid him down and Cas was sitting up in the bed watching Dean. They had taken his clothes to the laundry and Dean had given Cas a pair of sweats and an black t-shirt to put on. Cas was too thin, looked like hell and was trying to hide how tired he really was. There were signs of pain around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. "how're you doing buddy?" Dean asked softly, as he sat on the end of the bed. "not well Dean" Cas laughed with out much humor. It reminded Dean of that glimpse into the future where doped out Cas had seemed empty and broken. "I'm sorry Dean. I wasn't careful and Hanna got hurt, now Ive lost what grace Crowley gave me, when it should have lasted me so much longer. I know im not going to be around much longer.." Dean interrupted him. "woha woha, no talk like that! We're gonna save you, we got a plan.." "Dean please, shut up and let me finish." Cas took a deep breath. "I know there's no way for me to help you. And I wont last till the end of the month by my calculations. Hanna double checked and agrees." Cas took a deep breath. "Its quiet out there Dean. Too damn quiet and we have no idea why. Hell, there are places where it looks like the earth has begun to heal itself dramatically from all the catastrophe's that have befallen it. All those places that were destroyed during the Apocalypse five years ago, all the damage I did and Metatron did. They are all healing themselves. And we cannot figure out how. Unless God has come back to pick up the pieces.." Cas let out a hollow laugh at that. "I'm dying Dean. For real this time. So if you don't mind. I'd like to spend the last few weeks I have left with my family." Cas scooted over and patted the bed beside him. Dean swallowed and scooted up beside him. Sitting on the edge of the bed by Cas's knees. Cas took Deans hand in his. Dean gulped when he felt how weak Cas was and how he was shaking. "Let me spend my last days with the people I love." Dean felt a tear slip down his cheek. Unbidden the song from the musical popped into his mind. 'A single man tear.' "Cas" Deans voice broke and Dean got up and sat next to Cas, pulling him into his arms the way he would Sammy when he was a little kid and had woken up with a night mare.  
They stayed that way until Cas fell asleep. Than dean laid his cheek on the top of Cas's head. He sat that way for a few hours and then slid out of bed and laid Cas down. Cas muttered something in his sleep and dean pulled a blanket over him. Dean stood up and promised Cas silently that They would not give up, but that he would make the next few weeks happy ones for Cas. (he wouldn't call them the Last few weeks. Winchesters do not give up)

Serin Placed the Stone carefully in the middle of the Sigil and fussed over it for a bit. Her second, a Demon named Ron, came carefully into her line of sight and waited, head down until she acknowledged him. "Ron, there are some Demons hiding about twenty miles from here, they are trying to figure out what I am doing for the self proclaimed King of hell." She handed a Leach blade to Ron, who took it with carefully covered hands. "oh do be careful Ron, those gloves will protect you from the blades effect but should you mess up, the spell will dissipate." Ron nodded quietly. "well? Don't dally! Go! Leave one to go running to that snail and let him know how powerful I am. Just in case I decide I want to use him later.." She went back to humming to herself as Ron left.  
Ron hurried out to the bar. Thinking furiously to himself. He scratched the back of his head where the protection symbol was that the Light Elf Knight had branded him with two weeks ago. The knight had told him only to wait until such a time came that he could, with out harming his position, leak out information to Crowley. Not that Ron cared particularly who won this war. Serin had no interest in earth, just the power that the fallen grace had given her and would give her to take to her realm and rule.  
She wasn't a fool like the demons here, Ron thought grimly, she only wanted the fairy realm. He had heard her tell one of her flunkeys from her world that the biggest issue with her predecessors was that they overreached. She would take all the fallen grace, demon energy and soul energy she could and when she had enough, she would return to the faye realm and destroy the light elves. How, he didn't care. But that damn knight put a damn brand under his skin on his vessels skull that not only locked him in the vessel and hid his true thoughts regarding Serins enemy's from the Queen. But bound him to the Light elves cause, and thus helping save earth for the humans. Ron growled to himself. He hated being used, but he was patient. He would bide his time. In the mean time, he had just been given permission to send Crowley a message. He better make it worth it. And enjoy the carnage while he can.. Ron opened up the door to the Diner and was faced with better than twenty demons. He grinned and snarled. Raising the Leach blade.  
With a speed unmatched due to Serin's personal enhancements of him. He dispatched all but one of the Demons. The newest one, and whispered in his ear. The Demons eyes went wide as Ron continued to talk quietly in his ear. When Ron was done, the Demon looked at Ron. "Can you remember all of that?" Ron asked quietly, with deadly intent. "y-y-yes" The demon said. "Good boy. Off you go" and with a pat on the head he broke all the bones in the demons meat suit and sent it to Crowleys throne room.  
Crowley was sitting in his throne pouting. What had he done to deserve this? He had tried for two weeks. Two weeks! And all he had to show for it was the loss of a thousand lower demons. Crowley sighed and threw a knife at a demon out of pique. He watched as the Demon screamed and went up in flames. "well shit.. make that a thousand and one". He turned to tell someone to clean up the ash when there was a screaming demon suddenly on the floor in front of him,. "what the hell?" Crowley thought in surprise. " who did this? I didn't order in tonight?!" Crowley looked around suspiciously at his court. No one claimed this piece of work. "bloody imbeciles" he muttered. With a twist of his hand he held up the simpering demon. "what are you doing here?" he asked.  
The demon opened his eyes and they widened when they saw him. The demon started talking rapidly to Crowley, passing on his message, Crowley's eyes widened than narrowed thoughtfully. "you don't say?" he mused. Than he remembered what was in front of him. "oh yes lets take care of you. Lets see what can I give you as a reward for your service?" "oh yes I got it" with a snap of his wrist, Crowley broke the demons neck. "simpering idiot" he muttered. He got up and straightened his jacket. Time to visit the moose and squirrel. He just hoped the damn angel was having a good day because squirrel's mood depended on that and Moose's mood depended on squirrel's mood and then there was the elf..,.  
Truth of the matter was, he had already tried to deal with the bitch Queen and she had handed his ass to him. And he had nothing to show for it. Just the knowledge that she was killing his demons. It took a week to get back up to strength. He hated to be bested and She had bested him. Better to deal with the Winchesters. The enemy you know and all that. Besides, they held up their ends of their bargains every time, no matter how distasteful it was for any of them. Plus he had something of a very tiny soft spot for the boys. Kind of like a favorite cockroach.. Well, he could always try to double cross or even triple cross his way thru this whole mess, One does have to have some fun after all... But ultimately Crowley knew who he would be rooting for. The bitch was stealing his souls after all, and she had made it clear She didn't care about anything else. Souls are power and He hated loosing power..He sighed and disappeared.  
Sam's Phone rang. The number 666 on the id. "About time." He grumbled. Two weeks had passed and Cas was only getting worse, although for some reason, being next to Dean helped almost as much as Hanna's healing him. Dean had even asked if touching his soul would recharge Cas. But Cas hadn't even the strength or the grace to do that anymore. "Dean!" Sam hollered. "Crowley's calling"  
"Its about Fucking time!" Dean Growled, Getting up from the couch where He and Cas had been sitting. Sam put Crowley on speaker phone. "Ya Crowley what'cha got for us?" Sam asked. "Hello to you as well Moose! Nice to hear your voice! Hows our resident fallen angel? He is still alive I trust?"  
"Fuck you Ass hat!" Dean said, angrily. "that's non of your concern" "well being that I may have found a way to save his angelic butt for a while, I think that a little niceness might do you some good. But if your not concerned about that stolen grace ripping him apart, molecule by molecule.." Dean made a face and visibly swallowed his pride while Sam fumed quietly.. "Sorry Crowley, just a bit up tight, how have you been doing?" Dean bit out in clipped words. Dean felt Cas's hand on his shoulder, Leaning on him for support. "just peachy darlings!" The King of Hell chirped out happily. "I do have a bit of information for you lads, and a gift for the good angel if you would like to meet me somewhere?"  
"Where did you have in mind Crowley?" Dean asked quietly. It was all he could do to control himself. "How bout that lovely little diner in town? Public place, no demon blades or double crosses" Crowley said. "one hour" Sam ground out. "oh ya! And bring the angel," Cowley said. "this concerns him as well and to be honest, my gift wont look good on you boys. Ta ta! See you in an hour!"  
As Crowley hung up, he shook his head to himself. Than looked up at the waitress/demon in front of him. "When they get here, make your selves scarce but keep watch!" She nodded and refilled his tea.  
The three of them, looked down at the phone quietly. Myka said from the doorway, "do you wish me to come with you?" Sam smiled at her and said. "just in case this is a trap, yes. We will need all the help we can get." Dean huffed. "of course its a trap" And so they loaded up in the car and left.  
Charlie stayed behind, one she hated Crowley, and two she had found something in a very obscure book that Keven had been translating before he died with Cas's help. Something about the weaknesses of a certain dark elf Queen...  
As the four of them walked into the diner, Crowley looked up and patted the U shaped bench with a smile, The four sat together on one side, leaving Crowley with most of the other, He just pouted at them and shrugged.  
"So whats this present you have for Cas" Dean asked right away. "patience Squirrel, have a cup of coffee, look! I ordered you some apple pie!" Crowley smiled big as the waitress brought out a slice for each of them, whip cream on top. Dean and Sam pushed away their plates, not taking their eyes off of Crowley. Myka shrugged and took a bite of hers. "They are just pie guys" she said after a moment. "they will not hurt you".  
Dean eyed the pie, then shrugged and took a bite. It was pie after all. "Crowley, whats going on?" Sam asked. Crowley smirked than leaned forward. "So here's the skinny, This Queen is collecting soul power, demon energy power and fallen grace into a huge rectangular rock of some sort that's purifying it and converting it to be usable for her so she can have enough power to take over the faye realm." Myka stopped eating, and stared at Crowley, Dean and Sam looked startled and both wore identical frowns. Cas, however went even paler and dropped his fork. Everyone than looked at Cas with varying degree's of concern, or amusement in Crowley's case.  
"Cas? What is it. Whats wrong?" Dean asked. "How is Serin getting the angel grace, Crowley? I have not heard mention of angels being killed." Cas asked instead of answering Dean. "well now that's the interesting part, here." Crowley said, leaning forward like he was going to impart a huge secret. "See, when you and other angel dude threw the host of heaven out of their home, they're wings burned up horribly. It was really painful I imagine, really, to have..." "Crowley! Get on with it!" Dean yelled, seeing the pain in Cas's eyes at the memory. "Fine, cant a guy have some fun around here." Crowley sighed dramatically. "So the wings burned up, but as you are aware, the wings are not the grace, they are a representation of the grace. And since energy cannot be created or destroyed..." Sam finished the sentence when Crowley's voice faded off. "The grace had to go somewhere." he said softly. "Righto buckaroo!" Crowley crowed. "I always knew you were the smart one moose." Sam glared at Crowley who just shrugged and smiled.  
"So there's what, just pools of grace where angles landed?" Dean asked. "well yes and no", Crowley said. "the grace is fluid energy. And energy attracts like energy so.." "So the 'Pools' of grace are where the energy has aligned itself together, probably where magnetic lines in the earth come together." Myka sighed. "this is how magic works in the faye world but Gaia usually takes care of that so they do not pool together. To much of this power would destroy everything." Dean looked at Myka "and who is Gaia?" Sam answered absently. "its the name that the druids gave the earth goddess back in the day. Also known as mother earth?" Dean just shook his head. "Great, another demi god to deal with" Myka shook her head. "Not one for you to worry about. She is dormant here, She is attached to the planet in all realms but left with us when we went to the faye realm. Here, mother nature is kinda on auto pilot"  
Dean rolled his eyes as he finished his pie.  
"So what do we do about this Queen bitch." Dean asked after an uncomfortable silence fell over the group. "Kill her of course" Crowley said. "duh".  
Crowley ignored the glares that the rest of the group gave him. "what? I thought that was what you guys did? Kill things, save the world. Well worlds now, plural. 'family business' and all that."  
Dean reached back and grabbed the demon knife and placed it on the table in front of him. "well I can tell when i'm not wanted. But before I go, here. Angel boy looks a bit worse for the ware," Crowley placed a vial with a blue/white substance in it. "take it or leave it, but I think your gonna need everyone up to full strength." Cas looked at the vial like it was going to bite him. "look if it makes you feel all better about your self, I took it after I killed the angel in self defense. He really wanted to kill me for some reason." Crowley said in an innocent tone. "although, I don't know why you don't just take a piece of the grace you have all squirreled away, from last time. Since it's your own grace, it will regenerate back to your normal strength after some time. All you need is a kernel." He looked at Dean, who said, "what the hell are you talking about? Don't you think if we knew where his grace was we would use it? And why the hell are you looking at me?" Crowley just sighed and said. "stupid squirrel"  
Dean lunged at Crowley from across the table and grabbed at empty air as Crowley disappeared with a laugh.  
The group trudged back down the stairs to the bunker after the confusing talk with Crowley. And updated Charlie on everything. "So Evil bitch queen is collecting energy from fallen angel grace, souls and demons and storing them in some kind of battery and than going to take said battery back to elf land and take over the whole realm." She said. "bummer". "That about sums it up" Sam sighed.  
Charlie looked at Cas and said. "so bottoms up! We kinda need you on this one angel boy". "Its not that simple charlie" Dean said as he threw himself down in the nearest chair. "Why? Because the grace came from a dead angel?" Charlie asked. " I really don't want to sound unfeeling about all this, but at this point, the angels already gone, really sorry about that Cas I know it was one of your brothers or sisters, But man, this is war!" Cas said, "I really don't know." "look Cas," Charlie said, crouching in front of where Cas had collapsed on the couch, "I know you feel bad about the whole angels falling and all, but it was metatrons fault, metatrons plan, not yours. You thought you were helping. And hay, in a normal human war, would you refuse to use a dead solders gun or knife to defend yourself? Or some other tool?" "She's got a point Cas," Myka said. "and there is that comment he made about your grace being stored somewhere" Sam said thoughtfully. "so there is hope still"  
Cas thought about what they said and nodded. "perhaps you are right." He sighed. Dean nodded. " I know you don't like it Cas, Just think of it as like a blood transfusion or something" "Angels grace cannot be compared to human blood dean.." Cas started to say. And then just sighed, "close your eyes" he said and opened the vial. The essence shot towards Cas and he inhaled it, quietly sending a prayer of thanks and appreciation to whom ever this essence belonged to, even though he knew the prayer couldn't be heard. The others closed their eye's as Cas began to glow and than exploded into white light as the grace healed Cas and infused him. Cas stretched his wings out, enjoying the feel of them again. He saw Myka watching him with a sad smile of understanding.  
As the light died down the others uncovered their eyes and blinked to rid themselves of the dancing lights. Charlie gave Cas a hug. "Im glad your back to feeling better, even if its for the moment." she said. Sam gave Cas a hug and Dean patted him on the back. Than every one went their separate ways to research. Cas sighed and went to his room to meditate and contact Hanna, who had gone on to continue her mission to find other angel to take back home. She needed to know this new info and see if she could help.

Dean threw a knife a little too hard and it stuck in the door jam just as Sam came around the corner, "uh dean? You ok?" Sam eyeballed the knife that was sticking just an inch away from his neck. Dean huffed and went back to throwing knives at the target on the wall. "sorry." Sam watched as Dean threw knife after knife at the target in a perfect circle. "Want to talk about it?" Sam asked. "whats to talk about Sammy?" Dean asked sarcastically. "Cas is still dying, we found out that as long as he gets a small piece of his Grace back, he'll be fine cuz guess what? The damn shit grows back like a finger nail or hair or some shit! But too bad we don't know where Cas hid the stuff, cuz he cant remember doing so. And Still nothing on the Queen bitch and where she is right now! So Ya, Ya Sammy im just peachy!" Dean had started speaking in a normal voice and by the time he was done he was yelling.  
"Well we could start with a regular old Hunt." Sammy said. He handed Dean a paper that had an article circled in the back. "Man robs bank, but has alibi." Dean read the article and snorted. "Sounds like a shifter to me" "Its two hrs away" Sam said. "maybe this will take our mind off our current 'end of it all' problems for a bit,." Dean looked at him and laughed. "you mean like a vacation?" Sam smiled and said. "a Winchester vacation." Dean just laughed again and went to get ready. "Lets take Cas, Maybe ganking a shifter will do him some good."  
It sounded good, in theory anyway. The hunt started out routine, they asked questions, Cas was getting really good at the whole fake fbi thing. They found the Shifter and of course it bolted, So the Boys ran after it and herded it to Cas who appeared at the end of the alleyway. The boys finished approaching the thing at a walk, it was trapped after all, and that's where it went wacky. Turns out, there were two of them. The one that they had chased took on Cas and the other one, a small blond girl that looked like she was twelve came out of the shadows. Sam looked at Dean and Dean said. "really? You led us into a trap, with her waiting to back you up?" Dean sounded incredulous. The Female simply smiled and said. "big things come in small packages." The man attacked Cas and forced Cas immediately onto the defensive. Dean and Sam stepped up a step and the girl took a step toward them. "ah ah ah!" She said, "you two are mine" Sam and Dean both did a double take at her words.  
Cas was in trouble, Dean noticed. "This guy can fight! And he's doing some kung fu shit." Dean thought to him self. Cas seemed like he was holding his own but closer look showed that while Cas was fighting with everything he had, the shifter was barley braking a sweat. Dean looked at the girl, who attacked at that moment. It took about two minutes and Sam was on one wall with a broke wrist and spitting blood. While Dean was shaking his head to clear the cobwebs hitting a brick wall tended to bring on. Dean took a quick stock of his injuries. The girl had hit him so many times, so fast that his body was still finding new hurts. His ribs were sore. And a molar was loose, his lip was split and he could feel his eye swelling.  
He pushed himself up with a groan and got to his feet. With a final shake of his head he pulled out his gun and took aim at the girl with a knife to Sams throat. She smiled and jerked the knife across his throat just as a shot rang out. Dean looked at his gun stupidly. He hadn't fired it yet. Than looked back at Sam who was holding his neck with blood pouring out of it. The shifter laying dead over his lap. "Tasha!" the male shifter yelled. "no!" and with one last quick flurry of moves, Cas was laying face down with a knife in his gut. "Cas!" yelled dean, numbly. And training took over. He aimed and fired even as he ran to Sam and helped hold pressure over his neck. The silver bullets hit the shifter in the abdomen and the knee. Dean emptied the remaining clip into the shifter without another thought, just rage. "This sonofabitch killed Cas, and may still kill sammy if I don't get the bleeding stopped" He thought. Dean went on auto pilot then and looked at sammys neck. "Sammy, Sammey!" Dean yelled. "Don't you die on me buddy!" "Dean." Sammy gasped. "Don't talk! Just let me look at your neck" Dean pulled back the pressure a bit when the blood stopped flowing so fast. He took a breath. "its just a nick sammy," He breathed out in relief. "and its a vein, not the artery, Look it's slowing down already." He put a handkerchief over it and put sammy's hand on it. "just hold pressure ok?" He looked at sammy in the eyes. "I've got to check on Cas."  
Dean got up and ran over to where Cas was struggling to get up. "Cas!" he yelled. "please tell me that was a regular blade." Dean pleaded him, even though he new the answer. They had discovered during the course of this hunt that there had been some deaths that Myka had said fit the profile of a leach blade. But Dean was determined to be positive, "what were the chances really of a shifter getting a hold of one of those damn blades? I mean really?" Dean thought frantically hoping. It was shattered in a second when he saw Cas's face. He looked so much worse, the blade sticking out of his stomach. He took his outer flannel off and wrapped it around the handle and threw it away from him as hard as he could. Even with the shirt around the blade and him holding on to the shirt, Dean felt exhausted and fatigue hit him so hard for a second that he almost blacked out. He struggled back to the situation with a deep breath. "damn" he thought. As he stared at Cas.  
Cas was barely breathing. Dean put pressure on the wound in his stomach and then Dean propped him up on the wall and smiled grimly. "you look like hell angel" he said, blinking back tears. "Don't worry, ill get you back to the bunker, or ill summon Crowley," he said frantically. "He'll be able to get your some more borrowed mojo" "Dean" Cas said weakly, with a cough. Dean heard Sam get up behind him and stumble to where they were. He'd lost a lot of blood but had managed to get the bleeding stopped. Dean ignored both of them and plowed on. "I can't loose you Cas, I won't loose you! Not again!." Dean's voice failed him. Cas took advantage of the silence. "I'm done, Dean. My vessel is done. The blade finished destroying what the borrowed grace was already doing." "So find another Vessel!" Dean yelled. "It would take more energy than I currently have to search for one. And even if I could find one, I would parish before I could find the energy to ask permission. And that was if I found one willing to say yes." Cas coughed weakly and blood showed up on his lips. "I promised Jimmy that I would leave his line alone when he said yes to me that last time. And vessels have to be strong enough to contain an angels grace. As you both know, that is difficult to find at full strength."  
"Cas." Dean said weakly and stopped. "You will be fine, Dean. You have the others. Myka is more than capable of fighting and you will find some way to save the faye realm. I have faith in you. If you could stand up to Michael and win, than the Queen has no chance." Cas favored Dean with a small smile.  
Dean felt a jolt in his chest at Michaels name. And he blurted it out before he thought it thru. "Michaels vessel! I am Michaels true vessel! Just like Sammy was Lucifers!" Cas frowned "Dean is loosing his grip on sanity." he thought sadly and looked at Sam. Sam had that crease in his forehead that he got when he was thinking something out. "yes Dean." Cas said carefully, "But Michael is safely locked away in the cage, with Lucifer, remember?" Cas's whole body spasmed as he had a coughing fit. Dean was eerily reminded of when Sammy was doing the trials. "Remember when Sam was hurt after the angels fell? And Gadreel came and possessed him? He could because Sam was already a vessel, a powerful vessel!" Sam's face cleared as he figured out what Dean was going at. "Dean do you think it would work? At least until we could find a better one?"  
Cas looked at the brothers with confusion. He couldn't think very well right now, but they were definitely up to something. "what do you mean, Dean. I cannot follow your train of thought." "Me! Cas! Take me as a vessel! You can ride in me and rest until we find another vessel or your Hidden grace where ever that is!" Dean looked at Sam and saw his hope mirrored in Sams face. Cas frowned, "no that doesn't seem right, Dean." "Cas, we don't have time to argue! You said the leach blade is destroying the host body right? So it hasn't started on your grace yet. Or what ever makes you, you!" Cas nodded with just a bit of hesitation. "so YES! Castiel! I am giving you permission, hell I'm ordering you to do it damn it!" Dean grabbed Cas by the tan coat he always wore and gave it a shake. "damn it angel! Possess me already!" In the very back of Deans mind, he realized how ridiculous this whole thing sounded. And as Cas's instinct to live kicked in and Dean saw only white as his angel took his body and possessed it, he swore he heard his brother say quietly to him self, "one day we will look back on this moment and laugh...i hope." then darkness.  
"Dean!" "Dean wake up please!" Dean heard his brother urgently calling to him. He felt humming, or was that vibrations all around him. "One more hour sammy, and Ill get up." he groaned. "oh thank god!" he heard Sammy say. "Dean! You got to get up. I'm still bleeding here and I cant drive my self to the hospital. I broke open my neck again getting you and Jimmys body back to the impala."  
Dean came to with a jerk at those words and his memories flooded back. He was in the front seat of the impala. It was running with the heater on to warm them up. He looked around wildly and saw Sam sitting in the back seat with Cas's body leaned up against the Driver side door beside him.  
The handkerchief that Dean had given him was red with blood as Sam pressed it hard to his neck. Dean noticed he looked very weak and tired. "Dean please man, I need some blood and a dr."  
Dean nodded and slid over to the Drivers side. He headed to the nearest er, looking worriedly back into the back seat at Cas and Sam. "Do you think it worked?" Dean asked? Sam looked worried but said, "It looked just like all the ones we've seen, you were out for about twenty minutes. Can you like, feel him or anything? I mean jimmy made it out to sound like it was kinda crowded in there." Dean kinda took stock of his body, he still hurt like hell, so he said, "Cas? Are you in here?" Dean felt kinda stupid when he said it. Than worried when he got no answer. He looked at Sammy in the back seat and shrugged, his emotions showing thru to Sam. He was scared shitless that it hadn't worked at all and they had lost Cas forever.  
"Well maybe he's like sleeping or something. That knife punches quite a kick" Sam said. "Its in one of the boxes bobby made that we had in the trunk." When Dean's eyes shot back to him at the mention of the knife he had forgotten. "do you know how hard it is to pick up a knife with out touching it?" Sam said with frustration in his voice. Dean gave Sammy a small huff of laughter and focused on the road.  
Myka and Charlie met them at the hospital when they got there. Dean and Sam told the officers and the Dr's about being 'mugged' by some guy and his girlfriend and they put an apb on two people that were already dead. Sam was rushed into emergency surgery and Dean was left to fill out the paperwork. Myka got Dean some coffee and a little pocket pie from the vending machine. "So what happened?" Myka asked as soon as Dean had finished half his pie. Dean told her the bare bones. Including what happened to Cas. "I can't feel him, Myka! What if it didn't work?" Dean was almost frantic. "Look," Charlie chimed in. "the books say that when ever Cas really needs to talk to you about something, and he's indisposed somehow, he comes in a dream right?" Myka looked at Charlie in confusion. "books?" Dean for his part growled at charlie at the mention of the books, than brightened up a bit. "Ya! So your saying I should go to sleep? Maybe Cas will come to me then because he's so weak right now." Than he looked at his feet. His night mares weren't a secret. Well that he had them anyway. And there was some things that even Cas didn't need to know. And right now he was about 60-40 with a 60 percent chance of reliving that hell nightmare again. Myka looked at him and said, "if you and I go somewhere quiet, I can help you fall asleep and keep control of your dreams so you don't fall into another nightmare." Dean looked at her and considered her offer. "I am not as proficient in it as Cas was," Myka said. " So I would need as few distractions as possible." "Great!" Charlie said. "than lets find a quiet room and lock the door" The found an un used room and charlie stood guard/waited for news on Sam while they went inside and locked the door.  
"what do you want uh need me to do?" Dean asked nervously. "just lay on the bed and close your eyes." Myka looked into deans eyes after he laid down and said. "Sam told me about your time in Hell, dean. I will do my best to ignore what I see. But some times if some memory is particularly strong. Some will bleed thru." Dean felt a thread of fear and dread curl up in his stomach. If Myka saw. She would be just as disgusted with him as every one else would be. He briefly thought about not doing this, maybe cas will just find a way on his own to contact him. Myka pushed his shoulders down gently but firmly, leaving no doubt in Deans mind who was stronger of the two of them. She just looked at him and took his hand in both of hers. What she said next made him speechless and he stared at her with his mouth open in shock. "I will not judge you, Nothing I will see will ever change my thoughts on what a hero you really are, as well as what a wonderful person you are, for a human any way." her eyes crinkled at him as she smiled. And she began to hum. The sound wove its way around Dean and the last thing he thought was. "She knows. She knows what happened to me and she doesn't care." His next thought was why he cared what she thought because they really barely knew her. He felt an affirmative response from her as he drifted to sleep and for the love of all that was holy, This half elf, half angel that he had known for less than six months knew about his last few years on the rack and still liked him, and he actually believed her.  
Dean was not in hell. That was his first thought. "well where am i" he wondered. Unlike his other dreams, when Cas would find him, he knew exactly what was happening before he saw Cas. Dean Looked around at his surroundings, he was in a park, "Wait, I know this park" Dean went down the path to the left and sure enough, two benches. One of those benches had a certain black haired angel of the lord sitting in it. Dean sat down on the bench beside Cas, unlike last time, when he had sat on the other bench. They just sat like that, Dean had no idea how long. Just comfortable in each others company.  
Finally, Cas sighed and said. "this was probably a bad idea dean." Dean looked at him and Cas turned his head to look at Dean with a small frown. "well your still alive right?" Dean asked. Cas frowned a little deeper. "I have just enough grace to keep my self going inside your body if I don't try to heal you when your injured." Dean shrugged and rested his elbows on his knees. "no ones asking you to Cas, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Your welcome as long as you want or until we find another vessel for you." Cas sighed. "I don't think you appreciate exactly how hard that task will be, Jimmy's family was sparse and his blood line ended with Clare." Dean looked over at Cas, "does it have to be Jimmy's line?" Cas frowned thoughtfully. "No there are others but it takes some research. And I don't think i'm going to find someone as uh flexible as jimmy was." Cas huffed a laugh. Dean reached over and patted Cas on the shoulder. He figured if he was sharing a body with Cas than at least he could share how much Cas meant to him and how willing he was to wait as long as it took to get Cas a vessel.  
So Dean held on to Cas's shoulder and willed him to understand what Dean was unable to put into words. Dean concentrated on how much he needed Cas, how he felt when he thought he'd lost him. How much his friend meant to him. Cas's head snapped up from where it had been hanging. His eyes grew wide and he stared at Dean. They're eyes locked and to Deans surprise, He found him self surrounded by Love and acceptance. He had not realized how much his feelings had been reciprocated.  
Dean broke eye contact, flustered and embarrassed. He took his hand away from Cas and cleared his throat. "Well now that we got that cleared up." He stood up and forced the feelings to the back of his mind. That had been a little bit deeper than he was comfortable with, some of those feelings had been more complicated than he was used to dealing with.  
"If you need anything, uh let me know somehow." Dean cleared his throat. "just don't like take over and start making me eat salad or anything ya know?" Dean let out a nervous laugh as he tried to lighten the mood. That was close to a chick flick moment and Dean didn't like those. Cas gave him a small smile and said "I'll make sure to warn you when I find I crave a salad." Dean gave him a teasing stern look and shook his finger at Cas, who had not moved. "you do that, ok I'm gonna go wake up now, Sam got pretty beat up by that shifter and he's in surgery." Im glad Sam will be ok dean. I was concerned about him." Cas looked back up at Dean. "could you do me a favor and tell Hanna what has happened, I think she would start to wonder what had happened to me." Dean nodded and faded away.  
Cas whispered to the presence he could feel. "Thank you Myka, I didn't know he felt that strongly." Cas felt a welcome of warmth and than it was gone.

Dean woke up gently and looked at Myka who was talking to Charlie. "Dean! Sams out of surgery! He's in recovery. Dr said he needed four units of blood, but he'll be back on his feet in twelve hours or so!" Dean got up, he felt surprisingly good considering, wait, "Sams out of surgery already? He just went in!" Charlie said, oh its been four hours. Myka said you needed the sleep. Myka looked at him and after a few seconds Dean broke eye contact. He hadn't forgot his realization that Myka knew what had happened to him in hell. And he was mortified, but in true Dean Winchester f ashen he hid it. Myka for her part never said a word.  
Charlie looked at the two of them and said "lets go see Sam." They followed her with out comment. Sam looked pale but good. He had a bandage on his Left side of his neck. "doc said I was lucky," Sam said with a grimace. "One more fraction of an inch and It would have been to late. Two stitches in the vein and six on the skin and muscle."  
Myka spoke up. "after Sam gets back on his feet, I am teaching you all how to fight." Dean and Sam looked at Myka like she had grown two heads. "Woha there girl," Dean said with a laugh. "we know how to fight. We have been doing this for our whole lives practically." Sam just laughed. "ya no offense Myka, I mean I know your an awesome fighter, but really, im sure we've been doing this a bit longer than you. We know how to fight. Do pretty good job of it to I think." he gave a smug look to Dean who nodded and pointed at Sam. "ya what he said". Charlie started laughing. And she just kept laughing. She collapsed onto the chair n the room and laughed until she cried. Dean and Sam's smug looks slowly faded into puzzled looks as they watched Charlie try to breath and finally get control of her self. Than she looked at Myka and back at the Boys and went back into gales of laughter. Myka just watched her with a small smile.  
Finally Dean asked. "care to tell us what is so funny?" Charlie tried to speak but couldn't and Myka suggested a coffee run to which Charlie ran out of the room. Dean looked at Myka and said. "enlighten us please" Sam was looking at Myka like he had just noticed something. Dean was getting very frustrated. "you do not fight, Sam and Dean, you brawl. You take some basic self defense courses and military hand to hand combat with good old fashion bar fighting and you Brawl. I will teach you the Elvin hand to hand combat techniques along with some Elvin marshal arts. You will learn how to properly wield a bladed weapon and we will begin when we return to the bunker.  
"We've done good with what we had so far" Dean said defensively. "you have gotten your asses beat, almost killed and now Castiel is riding around in you because of what you've had so far." Myka said coldly. This was a side of Myka they hadn't seen yet and Dean blanched at the reminder about Cas.  
"ya well," Dean had to strike out. He couldn't keep his mouth shut. Even as he said it he knew he should have kept his mouth shut. "what could a youngster like you teach us anyway?"  
Charlie chose that moment to walk in, made a strangled noise and turned on her heal to walk back out again. "uh oh" Dean thought. Myka looked at Dean and Sam and said with a smile. "I am five hundred and sixty three years old, according to your calender, and I have been my kingdoms weapons master for three hundred of those years. I teach all of the royal guard before they are allowed to serve and they do not graduate until they can fight me to a stand still. I will only be replaced if I die, resign or am beaten." Dean and Sams jaws dropped. Dean did a very good imitation of a fish. "you look very good for your age" Sam mumbled dumbly. "Thank you Sam, I will see you boys in the armory in the bunker four days from now" she commanded. "yes ma'm" the boys said together, meekly. "five hundred and sixty three?" Dean mouthed at Sam with disbelief, eyes wide.  
Sam shook his head in wonder. He wouldn't have given her twenty three years, let alone five hundred and sixty three. Dean got a mischievous look in his eyes as he looked at Sam. "Sooooo Sammy," Dean sniggered. "I guess you like the older ones huh?" Dean laughed as he dodged the plastic cup of water Sam threw at him and ran out the door. "Im going for the cafeteria." He tossed over his shoulder with a laugh. Sam just growled at him.

It had been two weeks since the hospital and Sam and Dean where exhausted. Myka drilled them in hand to hand techniques before breakfast, and close quarters combat and martial arts between breakfast and lunch. After lunch was weapons practice and after dinner was research. Charlie was reading all the Supernatural books again saying that something Crowley had said in the meeting was bugging at her. Myka was impressed with the guys progress, Dean was really good at the Martial arts and caught on much quicker than normal due to Cas helping him.  
Cas had actually started to become stronger and able to speak to Dean now. Sam had started to be able to tell when Cas was speaking to Dean because Dean got what Sam called his "cas face". Sam was fabulous at knife fighting and the weapons work. Myka had used a spell on Sam with his permission of course, to help enhance Sam's progress as well. She told them it was only due to the need for them to learn very quickly.  
They told Hanna what had happened and invited her to join them while they gave Jimmy a hunters funeral. It was Hanna actually that had figured out how to track the Queen. After the funeral, Cas had made sure that Dean could feel his presence during the whole thing since burning Jimmys body had really shook everyone up. Dean more so than Sam. Dean didn't examine why too awfully closely. Cas, had understood and had given Dean the support he needed. Cas was always there for Dean it seemed. Dean could always feel him. When he was sleeping, Cas steered his dreams toward more pleasant things and on the occasion that he had a nightmare, Cas showed up and pulled him out of it.  
Dean began to really enjoy his dream time, and started making excuses to go to bed early, not that he needed them. Neither Sam or Dean had much in the way of energy at the end of the day.  
Dean didn't delve to deeply as to why he looked forward to seeing Cas so much more these days, (nights). The boys were reading some books when Hanna popped in. Charlie jumped out of her skin. Dean said. "Im beginning to regret putting those individual sigils up so she could come and go as she pleases." softly to Sam. Sam just shushed him and said to Hanna.  
"Hi Hanna, hows it going?" Hanna looked at Sam with confusion, "How's what going exactly". "Man its like Cas, year two all over again." Dean laughed. Sam sighed. "Its a figure of speech Hanna, like 'how are you' and 'how have you been doing' all rolled up into one sentence." Hanna nodded, "I see, than 'it's' going as well as can be expected. I believe I have found a way to track the Elvin Queen."  
The whole team perked up at that one. "How?" Dean asked excitedly. "Hanna frowned. "well, it goes back to what Castiel told me about what had happened to Anna, The angel that ripped out her own grace and was born a mortal." The boys nodded to encourage her to continue. "Well, when you were looking for her grace, you found a tree, do you recall?" Sam sat up straighter and said. "Ya we remember. The locals would touch the tree and be healed or something because of the grace..."  
dean jumped up as he got it.  
"Didn't Cas say that it seemed like mother nature was healing itself a lot better than usual?" he asked "so perhaps if we look for places with better than average foliage growth, higher birth rates and more miraculous events we can find the 'Pools' of grace and there for track the Queen." Cas intoned to Dean. "well done Hanna!" "exactly right Cas!" Dean whooped, and gave Hanna a huge hug. Hanna just stayed still, confused as Dean squeezed her. Than Dean apologized and hurriedly repeated what Cas has said to him. Sam opened his lap top and started googling. "There are about twenty different places in north America alone that fit those criteria." Sam said with carefully contained excitement.  
"Yellowstone park in particular has seen an increase in endangered species with in the Last Year, plants and animals," Sam continued to scroll thru. "hold up. Now it seems to be returning back to normal over the last few weeks, and they've had a few earth quakes to boot. Wow,". Dean came over to read over sams shoulder. "old Faithful has stopped completely after that last earth quake. That's not good." Hanna frowned. "the gizer you refer to as 'old faithful' was placed by the angel who built that waterfall to release the pressure of the magma under the land. If it doesn't release the pressure than the magma will force its way out from underneath quite violently. There will be much loss of life."  
"well you certainly know how to dampen the festive spirit! Am I right boys?" Sam and Dean jumped up at a voice they thought they would never hear again and stared. Myka jumped up and said "Father!" Gabriel winked at the boys and hugged his little girl tight. With a kiss on the cheek he said. "So have these to rumpscalians been treating my baby girl right?"  
Myka sighed good naturedly. "yes father, they have been the utmost gentlemen, when they arnt getting beat to death." Gabe grinned. "good to hear," he looked at Dean and Sam. "I wouldn't want to have to hurt them for breaking my baby's heart." he shot another look at Sam in particular. Dean glanced over and did a double take when Sam Blushed. And Dean sniggered. Sam shot him a look and elbowed Dean in the ribs, hard.  
"So you managed to save the world yet again in my absence" Gabe said to Sam and Dean. "ya uh thanks for what you did.. ya know." Dean stumbled over a sort of thanks. "i mean despite all the crap you've put us thru, well you did." "save your asses?" Gabe said mildly. Dean glowered and Sam rolled his eyes.. "Well, what can I say? You two grow on an angel." Gabriel popped a jolly rancher in his mouth with a grin."  
"So I can tell by how gingerly you two are tip toeing around, my daughter is training you two how to fight." Gabriel laughed as both boys winced. "Its about time" Gabriel turned to Dean. "so how are you doing baby bro?" "I am doing well, thank you Gabriel." Dean opened his mouth to repeat what Cas said out of habit when Gabriel waved Dean off. "I can hear him" Dean looked surprised. "How, I mean Hanna can't..." "ARCH angel, remember? Last one too, so more power to go around." Dean was taken aback by how sad Gabe looked when he said that.  
The team had split up and The girls had gone back to talking about the current problem while Gabe had taken Dean and Sam off to one side to "catch up". "So are you just gonna squat in Dean here? Or you looking for a new vessel? Too bad by the way, I was kinda fond of that one." Gabe asked.  
"As soon as the current crisis has been averted, We are looking for another suitable bloodline to ask."  
"And If no one says yes, Cassie?" Gabe raised his eyebrows.  
Dean spoke up finally and said angrily. "Than he stays with me." Gabe raised his hands in a sign of surrender. "woha Dean, I was just asking. But now that you bring it up," Gabe looked down at his shoes. Dean asked impatiently, "what?" Gabe sighed. "are you prepared for what that means Dean?" he said with total seriousness, Dean and Sam were taken back by the tone in his voice. Dean Felt Cas sigh. "Whats he talking about Cas?" Dean asked slowly. But it was Sam that answered. "Your body's not gonna age dean, you have Cas in you. I'm gonna age and get old and die, or die hunting." Sam smiled and shrugged. "You wont, well grow old anyway, as long as Cas is hitching a ride."  
Dean knew this really, he just hadn't let himself think about it. "Its not gonna happen that way." He said with the tone of voice he used when he refused to deal with something. "we are gonna get this queen bitch and than find a good devout vessel for Cas." Gabe just shook his head and looked Dean in the eye, Dean had a feeling it was Cas, Gabe was looking at. "hay!" He told Gabe angrily, "stop trying to have meaningful silent dialog with Cas using MY eyes." Dean turned around and stomped off.  
Gabe sighed and than looked at Sam. "what about you?" He asked. "what about me?" Sam asked? "this is between Dean and Cas." "isn't it usually?" Gabe asked with a smile, "do you think Cas will chose a female vessel this time and give us all some relief?" Sam choked on the beer he was drinking and tried to glare at gabe but gave up and just chuckled. "So again I ask, What about you?" Gabe crossed his arms and looked straight at Sam. Sam just looked confused. "I don't get what you are asking Gabriel," Gabe sighed and asked. "Sam, dear dumb Sam, when are you gonna make a move on Myka?" Sam stared at the archangel open mouthed in total shock. Gabe walked out of the kitchen and smacked Sam on the Shoulder on the way by. Sam stared out the door of the kitchen long after he had disappeared. "on that note, I think im going to bed." Sam said to himself after a bit. And that's what he did.

Gabe joined Myka the next morning with Sam and Dean. They paired off, angel and human and begun to spare. This lasted for hours. Myka declared that after Lunch, they were going to take a break as no one had found anything useful on how to find the Queen. Charlie was still reading the supernatural books and had gotten Myka to begin them much to Sam and Dean embarrassment and Gabe's amusement. Sam, Dean and Gabe were playing poker and bickering about whether Gabe was cheating when Charlie yelled "Eureka!"  
She ran up to the table and sat down next to Dean. "I think I figured out what Crowley was talking about! Its so obvious I don't know why we didn't see it before!" Charlie was actually bouncing up and down in excitement between Sam and Dean. She had the Book Lazarus rising, all about when Cas had met Dean. "Look!" she crowed. "read!" Dean shook his head. "Lived it, remember?" Charlie frowned and shoved the book to Sam. "that passage, right there! Out loud" Sam frowned and read. "who are you, what are you? Dean asked? I am an angel of the lord, I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition" "wow Cassie" Gabe said, I didn't know you had the flare for the dramatic." "oh he does, believe me." Dean said with a laugh. Sam looked at Charlie, "ok so," Charlie looked at Dean, "Cas didn't you tell me you had to stitch Deans soul back together?" Dean nodded the affirmative. Gabe's face cleared and he chuckled. "Cas you dog you!" Sam and Dean were really puzzled now and Dean was getting angry. He didn't like not being in on things. "Charlie cut the cryptic crap! What did you find out?!" Charlie wasn't in the least bit intimidated. "ok so riddle me this, why did Crowley emphasize the phrase 'squirreled away' when talking about where Cas so called hid his pieces of grace, what is his favorite nick name of Deans and what did Cas 'stitch' Deans soul back together with?" She waited excitedly for them to get it, looking back and forth. Sam got it first, as usual.  
"His grace! Cas stitched Deans soul back together with his own grace!" Sam exclaimed. Dean took a swift breath in as he got on board with it. "Cas? Buddy, do I still have some of your grace in my soul?" Dean held his breath waiting Cas's answer. "Yes," Cas answered reluctantly. "that's great! Buddy! All you need to do is take just a little piece back and you got your grace back!" In his excitement, Dean failed to notice Cas's hesitation. He turned to Gabe. "so how long will it take to grow back Cas's own grace?" Gabe quietly looked at Dean. "with my help, probably about a month total." "A month!?, well in the grand scheme of things that's not that bad at all! This is great! Cas go get yourself some Grace!" Dean finished his sentence with a flourish and waited. "Dean?" Sam said quietly. "ya, what sammy?" Dean asked than he saw Sam's face, Sam looked over to Gabe and saw the solemn look on Gabe's face. "What is it Gabriel," Sam asked quietly. Dean felt his heart sink to his stomach.  
Gabe looked at Dean and Sam. "I've seen Deans soul, and frankly its a mess. It's better than it was, much better, but still." Gabe paused and ran his fingers over his lower jaw in a surprisingly human gesture. "Cas's grace is whats holding the pieces together, if he takes the wrong one, the whole thing could fall apart. That's the 'profound bond' Cas keeps blathering about." "oh," Sam said and looked down. "It is possible, if I was very careful to chose the right piece of grace, I don't need a big one," Cas said tentatively. Dean felt his heart soar. "Can you guarantee you would get one that he could stand to loose?" Gabe asked. "no." Cas said in a tiny defeated voice. Dean's heart broke at the sound in Cas's voice. If Cas could cry right now, Dean had no doubt he would be. "I am so sorry Dean" Cas said.  
Dean couldn't bare the sound in his angels voice. Nor could he handle the despair and anguish Cas was feeling. They had gotten so much closer while Cas had been hitching a ride. And it was just to much for 'Dean. "So we try anyway." He declared. "what's the worst that could happen?" Gabe looked at him and said. "you could get stuck in your worst memories and never find your way out for eternity." "oh, ah I see" Dean said momentarily taken aback. He was quiet for a bit, well aware of every one staring at him, He took a deep breath. "Cas won't let that happen, See, Cas, I have faith, in you."  
Dean stood up and clapped his hands together. "So lets get this show on the road, the sooner Cas has his Grace back, the sooner he can get the strength back to get a new vessel!" "are you tired of me already dean?" Cas asked. "What? No! Cas thats not- thats not what I meant, you are welcome as long as you want of course..." Dean stopped as he Felt that Cas was actually Teasing him. He chuckled and looked around where everyone was watching him. "So if everyone is done watching me and Gabe have a conversation with the air, Lets get going!"  
It was decided that Myka would go along for the ride, as Sam put it, so she could help Cas. It seems Myka was a soul healer or something. And could be back up. Dean was a hell of a lot nervous about this but he was hiding it well. If Cas pulled the wrong string, he would learn some things he didn't want anyone to learn. It was bad enough Myka suspected about what he was hiding from. But she hadn't said anything so.. Dean pushed those thoughts away.  
Sam went to Myka while she was getting her space ready. This was going to be Myka, and Dean and Cas. Sam was just going to watch. Dean had uncomfortably pulled Sam aside and asked him to sit in on the whole thing. "I'd feel better knowing you were nearby little brother." Dean had said. And Sam had just enveloped Dean in a hug "of course I will big bro" Dean had hugged him back and than pushed him away, but not before Sam had felt how badly Dean was trembling. Charlie and Gabriel were going back to the faye realm to do research on what would actually Kill the dark Queen.  
Seems that the little kiss she had shared with the elf they had rescued had left a mark allowing her to slip past the vale with an angels help. Making her "uniquely qualified to do this part" She had told Dean.  
Sam suspected it was the angel, not the kiss that was going to get her thru but they all knew Dean would be more comfortable with fewest people around. And Charlie understood. They all knew actually, but they all pretended that Charlie was special and wished her well as Gabe put an arm around her shoulder and in a woosh of feathers, they were gone.  
Finally, it was time and Dean had put it off as much as possible. They decided to do it in Deans room for comfort and familiarity. Dean laid on his back and smiled tightly at Sam who was sitting on his Right. Myka sat on his Left and asked "Ready?" Cas gave his ready and Dean nodded. Myka closed her eyes and took Deans Left hand while Sam Took his right. Myka said it would help ground Dean but Sam suspected it was a comfort measure for both of them. He had told Gabe that when they were alone and Gabe looked at him real strange. "No Sam, you are Deans Ground. Whether you know it or not, you are connected to him.." Gabe looked like he was going to say something else, but Dean walked in to get them so he didn't.  
Myka closed her eyes and began to hum, weaving a healing spell around her and Dean. It encompassed Sams hands where he was holding Deans but went no farther. Sam saw the light start at Deans Left hand and wrap its way around Myka, then Dean and stop at Sams wrist. They were totally encased in the Light. Sam marveled at the colors in the light, it looked like a mother of pearl. And moved like a living thing. It was warm where it was touching him. When it collapsed around the trio like Saran wrap, Than, as it touched dean, Sam felt a tug from his middle. Like someone had pulled on an invisible string. The feeling grew very strong until sam was sure it was going to pull his insides out and than it released a little until it was just a pressure. "now that was new." he thought as he got comfortable and closed his eyes. Myka said this may take a while. He willed support to his brother and than imagined maybe he had gotten a faint response.  
Dean was back in the park. "I thought this would be more comfortable for you" Dean turned and saw Cas standing beside him. Dean Gave him a hug. Even though he saw him every night, it always felt like forever. Dean missed him. Cas returned the hug and if it lasted longer than a hug between friends normally did, neither one said anything. Dean rationalized it like every thing he didn't want to admit to. Cas was Family. Family hugs were acceptable.  
"Are you sure this is what you want to do, dean?" Cas asked again for the millionth time. "we can stop, no harm no foul as you would say." "We are doing this cas," Dean said firmly. "So lets get started." Cas smiled a sad smile at Dean. "I love you Dean" he said. This was the first time he had ever said that to Dean and it took him by surprise. Before he could respond, Cas placed his Hand on Deans heart and Dean Saw black.  
Sam looked at the Clock. 1700 hours. It glared back at Sam balefully. Bright green numbers glowing steadily. 1701. Sam saw it flip thru the number. It had been six hours and the only sign was some sweat on Mykas forehead. Well no news was good news. He laid his head back and closed his eyes again. He hoped anyway.  
Dean was floating in black warmth. He noticed it was getting hotter. "Cas?" he tried to say but something was in his mouth. Something hard and than when he tried to take it out of his mouth, he realized he couldn't move his hands. He started to struggle and realized he couldn't move, like at all. "what in the hell?" He tried to yell but nothing came out but a strangled sound around what ever was in his mouth. He was laying on his back on something hard and cold. He started to yell trying to get some kind of sound out. "well, you are awake finally I see, ready to start again?" Dean froze at the sound of that voice. Then really started struggling, he still couldn't see anything. He heard the sound of a knife scraping against the wall. Saw the sparks as they flew around in the dark. Than a sudden burst of white hot light.  
Dean blinked up against the spots in front of his eyes. Until he could see again thru the tears of to much light to soon. He looked around wildly for the owner of the voice. Evil laughter came from all around him. "you seem to have become immune to all of my inventive tortures" Alastair said in an amused voice. "you know, I was getting frustrated. And a little bored with our routine. Than I thought to my self, 'self' I said, what could I do to brake the big, bad, Dean Winchester." Alastair dragged the knife down his Face and side, a thin line of blood welling up where he drug it. "Well self, I said, I have tried my best, most inventive things on Mr Winchester, and he failed to brake, he continues to discount my very generous offer to him." Alastair than slid the knife over his hip, down the crease in the inside of his leg, and down the inseam to his foot, leaving a trail of blood. Dean didn't make a sound, he just glared.  
"So you know what my self said to me dean?" Alastair pushed a button and the rack dean was on bent up in the middle, bending Dean backwards. "It asked me a very interesting question," with a twist of his wrist, dean found himself face down on the rack now with the bend at his waist. "my self asked me, what could I possibly do, to break such a strong...Man." Alastair put some extra emphasis on the word Man.  
"Now as I walked thru my wonderful hallways, I came across a woman that was being, lets say, misused by some demons. And as I watched what they did to that wonderful lady, it came to me."  
Dean knew where this was going now, he remembered this. This was the first time Alastair had changed his torture up. Dean had been in hell for twenty one years at this point. Dean began to struggle again, feeling hopeless. He screamed thru the gag. Well he tried to scream for help,  
Sam felt the first wave of fear and he shot up In the chair, something was wrong! The tug in his middle intensified exponentially, until he could barely breath, Myka had warned him he may feel some of Deans fear thru the spell but holy hell! He knew that feeling, It brought back memories of his own time in hell. Sam looked at Myka and saw she hadn't changed. He started to yell to dean to tell him it was only a dream, when he remembered just in time, the last thing Myka had said to him before they followed Dean into his room.  
"what happens if he starts to remember hell?" sam had asked. "what do I do?". "nothing." Myka replied. "But" Sam began. "look sam, I know it goes against every thing you feel, but you must let dean face this. In order for the soul to heal, dean MUST face what is keeping his soul damaged, he must face it and realize that it is not his fault. Until he does that, he cannot heal. And that means he cannot move on." Myka sighed. "with that being said, there may be somethings he cannot move past, even if he does face it and heal." Sam looked at Myka. They both knew what she was speaking of. Sam had never once mentioned that dream to Dean, he didn't seem to remember sam being in his room.  
Sam just nodded and promised. Myka smiled and stood on tip toe to give him a kiss, a small, chaste kiss. And than they went to the room.

Then Sam thought to himself, "If I can feel Dean, maybe he can feel me." Sam concentrated on the feeling in his chest and tried to send reassurance to Dean. "its only a dream" he kept thinking, "your safe, your out of hell." Sam repeated that thought over and over, concentrating on that feeling in his middle, concentrating on Dean.  
Cas knew the moment the pulled on that particular thread of grace that something was wrong, He hadn't realized just how much Deans soul had absorbed his grace. It took a great deal of searching and anxiety over how long it was taking. Myka kept him updated and kept Dean in a state of waking sleep. He was still taking to long!  
Cas found one at last, strange he thought, this one was deep inside, something that had remained hidden to him. "I don't remember anything like this," he muttered as he gently took the loose thread and pulled. It came out, one long piece of Cas's grace, more than enough according to Myka and he tucked it deep inside him to keep it safe. And that's when all hell broke loose. "Ive lost him!" Myka thought to Cas. "He's stuck in one of his hell memories!" "which one?!" cas asked heading out to where his memories of that time were. "the last few years." Myka thought back to him. "just before he said yes to Alastair, Hurry cas!, these are the memories of what was done to him to make him finally brake."  
Cas felt a fear he hadn't felt before. He knew theoretically, what had happened to dean to make him break. He had never seen the memories, Dean had never shared, and Cas had never pushed. Cas had seen a lot of pain and suffering over his eons of life, and he had seen so many different kinds of torture while he was in hell, things angels would never even consider, even the worst of the tortues. But never spoken about it and when he had put Dean back together, he had not seen those memories, and had not looked for them. Dean refused to speak of his time in hell to anyone but his brother, and then only once did he open up. And that was a general conversation. No details.  
Cas was not ignorant. He was well aware of what went on in hell, no matter how distasteful it was to him. He moved as fast as he could thru deans memories trying to get to him before he could truly relive them. "this is my fault," Cas thought in anguish as he raced thru Deans neurons trying to find him. "this is what that thread of grace had held together, so deep in his soul." Cas hoped he wasn't to late.  
Dean screamed as Alastair raped him, over and over again, He used tools, he used himself, he found it humorous to sell tickets to a select few upper level demons to let them have a go at him. And every time one finished, Dean was magically put back together again. And a new way was found. Dean screamed, he sobbed and then, suddenly he heard Sam, "its a dream, dean. Your safe, your out of hell." Dean held onto that voice, that thought, but he simply couldn't get away. But it helped.  
Finally Alastair ended it for the day, (if there was a day in hell or a night) Dean was covered in tears and blood. Alastair idly wandered over to ask him the question he had asked for the last twenty one years. Alastair released him with a flick of the wrist. Dean crawled over to the corner and cowered, and knew he was cowering. Alastair came over and squatted down in front of him, Dean winced and tried to get away from him but the wall was behind him, in the way. Alastair asked the question again, gently petting his face. Holding onto Sams voice in his head, over and over, Dean told him the same answer again thru his sobs, "Stick it where the sun shines Alastair!" than something different happened. Alastair exploded, violently.  
Dean looked up in surprise and saw Cas looking at him, sorrow in his eyes from where the rooms door was. Cas hurried over to dean and sat in front of him. "I'm so, so sorry dean," Cas was crying, why was Cas crying? " I tried to find you in time! I'm so sorry." Cas reached his hand out to dean, "nononono!" Dean cringed away from Cas's hand and hid his face in his arms, mortified, ashamed beyond words. "Cas saw! Cas saw what they did to me, cas knows now, he'll be repulsed by me, im damaged goods now, cas won't love me any more." these thoughts ran around and around in his head as he just shook his head at cas and batted away his hands. In the corner of his mind where he knew It was a dream, he wondered when he began to love cas. And now it was to late. Cas wouldn't want to touch him, not after all those things did all that stuff to him. Dean could never give him what he deserved, he could barley stand to let Cas see him now, let alone touch him.  
He loved Cas, Dean finally realized and he wouldn't ever be able to do anything about it now. And now that Cas knew, he probably wouldn't even want to be friends anymore. Cas was going to leave him now. Dean realized, terrified of the thought but resigned to it at the same time.  
Cas grabbed Dean and pulled him up forcefully, and yanked him out of this memory to one where he and cas were sitting in the impala, Dean still tried to get away from cas, sobbing. But Cas wouldn't let go. He held Dean and whispered to him how much he still loved him. And no, he was not "damaged goods" It didn't matter what had happened to dean down in hell to cas. "I will never leave you Dean." His soul was still the most beautiful, righteous soul he had ever seen.  
Eventually, dean quieted down and stopped fighting. The occasional sniffle betraying that he had even been crying.  
"well now you've seen my deepest darkest secret cas" he whispered. "I still love you dean" Cas said. Dean pulled away wiping his eyes, He still couldn't look cas in the eyes yet. "I-" dean stopped and cas waited patiently. Dean felt a warmth, and a strength from somewhere, "Myka" a small voice identified the source. Then Dean felt a wave of love that he immediately identified as Sam. Emboldened by these feelings, Dean tried again and it all came out in a rush, like he was afraid he would never say it at all, "i love you too cas but, see, after all that, I just cant .. I cant do anything about it. Cuz you're a guy man and.. and there's certain... things... guys got to do to be together... like that and I cant cas! I just. I can't" the last few words came out as a whisper. Head down, dean waited for cas to leave. After all, He wasn't worth all that effort and drama anyway.  
"i don't care dean." Cas said. He put his fingers under deans chin and lifted, searching Deans eyes. " I love you for you, I love your soul! If you cannot take the step to the next level, I don't care. Ill take what I can get from you, and be happy about it!"  
dean searched Cas's eyes for anything to tell if cas was lying to him, he vaguely felt an urge pushing gently for Dean to believe him, that cas loved him for him. And would stay that way forever if need be. Dean gave cas a weak smile and cas pulled him back into a hug and kissed the top of his head. "now I have the grace I need" and your soul has finally begun to heal."  
"what's say you wake up now, your brother is about ready to have a coronary." cas said with a smile. Dean let out a shaky laugh, than stopped as another wave of fear washed over him, "what if Sam finds out Cas?" Dean whispered into Cas's coat. "he loves you to dean." cas said. "unconditionally" dean simply nodded, taking Cas's words at face value. He pulled away from Cas and took a deep breath, wiping the tears off of his face as he opened the impala door. The next thing he knew he was in bed with Myka gone and Sam looking down at him, holding tight to his hand., with a worried look on his face.  
Dean smiled weakly up at him and was surprised to have Sam pull him up and engulf him into a hug. "I love you dean" Sam said softly. "damn you scared the hell back into me." Dean huffed a laugh and held on tight to sam. If it lasted a bit longer than it normally would, no one said anything. They stayed that way until Dean was ready to face the world again.  
Gabriel came back with Charlie around lunch time the next day. She gave Dean a searching look and then A huge hug. Charlie than pulled out her computer and began to talk about how awesome the faye realm was and how nice the queen was and the library they had was amazing! Sam followed her with a smile and asked questions.  
Dean watched with a pang in his gut. Did they all know? He wondered. "no one knows details but you and Cas, Dean." Myka said softly behind them. "including me. We know only that you had to relive some part of hell."  
Dean gave her a tight smile. As he followed her to the tables in the common area.  
"ok, so everyone was all a twitter about the queen bitches plans and they are making some really big preparations for it." Charlie said. "but the librarian they have helped me out with the research about what will kill the bitch and what won't." She hit some keys and brought up a list. "so iron definitely will kill her if its done right. It had to be made by the dwarves and the queen is asking them to make a set for you, dean, and a set for Sam." Charlie also began to list some spell items. "I can get some of the hard to find items." Gabe said. "i think we have quite a bit of those around the bunker." Sam said "great!" Charlie said. "Now here's what we will need," Charlie sent Sam and Myka off to search for the stuff in the bunker and Gabe left to get the other ingredients. While Dean/Cas and Charlie took a Crystal and charged it with a spell that she had got from the Royal Alchemist. "and what's this for?" Dean asked as they got the spell ready. "this will supposedly find the queen." Charlie said as she grabbed the spell box with the leech blade in it and picked up the crystal and held it over the blade.  
They watched as a small wisp of dark shadow moved from the shiny blade to the crystel. Dean slammed the top of the spell box shut with a sigh of relief and locked it. "wow that blade does pack a punch doesn't it?" Charlie asked eyes wide as they both dealt with the fatigue that any close proximity to the blade caused. "ya and you ain't been touched by it yet." Dean said with feeling.  
Charlie pulled one last thing out of her bag. A rectangular piece of granite about half a foot square and a foot long. "this is a plug of sorts," She said. "its been mojo'd and wammy'd and all sorts of magic stuff done to it. It has to be placed on the stone while she is using it." Dean looked at her. "the stone will just absorb the granite apparently and block the energy. Then she can be killed." Charlie finished. "so how do we get it to the stone with out her noticing?" Dean asked Charlie..

Serin caressed the stone, now an obsidian black, She almost had enough to make the light queen suffer. One more ritual and She could put the realm of the faye under her control completely. Ron stood quietly as She continued to finish wrapping up the ritual so the stone could be moved safely.  
He wondered if there was a way to tell Crowley where they were going. There hadn't been a single move against them since that last one that cost the Winchesters their angel. And ron was running out of time. Tired of being this queens slave and well bored with how slow and methodical this elf was moving. Also tired of being the knights slave. "when this is over, I will belong to no one!" Ron thought fiercely to himself, Maybe ill just go to the amazon and spend a few decades torturing people there."  
One more lunar cycle and she would be ready to leave for home, she thought happily. She ordered the poor souls that had to move the big rectangular stone to pack it up. "next stop, a place the humans call mt McKinley."  
for two weeks, they searched and prepped, alternating between looking for the next likely stop for the queen and training with Myka. Gabe popped in off and on to converse with Cas in Enochian. The first time it happened, they were sparring with Myka. Both Sam and Dean were training to work together fighting against Myka. Both guys were exhausted and the respect for Myka had grown considerably.  
Gabe appeared and said something to Myka in Elvish who nodded and called for a halt. Gabe looked at Dean and said only. "I need to ask Cas something." He had begun to ask Deans permission after Myka chewed his as about just coming in and talking to cas, ignoring Dean. The boys had taken great pleasure watching Little Myka take Gabe down a peg or to. Gabe had turned to Dean and said. "sorry, may I speak with cas please?" Dean nodded, after a Dean-like sarcastic retort. And Gabe had asked Cas something about a spell and lay lines in the earth.  
This time something different happened. Dean opened his mouth and began speaking Enochian. Sam stared at Dean like he'd grown another head. Gabe and Dean/Cas had a complete conversation that Dean had no idea what was spoken about. And Cas simply said, "It's easier in Enochian" and Myka came at them again, making them concentrate on defending themselves.  
Later that night, when Cas and Dean met up in his dreams, Cas simply asked Dean to trust him and refused to talk about it. Dean didn't push the issue, these times in his dreams were precious to him.  
He and Cas were getting to know each other, just talking and learning things about each other, that Dean had never really thought about. Like, Favorite colors, foods, (dean admitted to Cas that he actually did enjoy a salad once in a great while.) and Cas told stories about things he had seen and done in his life. Dean learned quite a bit was left out of the history books. And now that Cas had his human experiences, he had developed a keen sense of ironic humor.  
Dean found himself holding Cas's hands as he finally talked about his time in hell, halting, shaky and told Cas everything. Cas just listened quietly and when he would get too choked up, or finish about a particularly bad day. Cas would place his arm around his hunters shoulders and squeeze tightly and say. "and I still love you dean, no matter what." And Deans soul continued to heal. And Cas continued to get stronger.  
On Wednesday of the second week, Charlie and Myka found the most likely place.  
"Mt McKinley!" Charlie said with a slap of her hand on the map table. It's known to have Magical property's any way, its a tangle of magnetic ley lines according to Gabriel and Cas and It's the Last place that "miraculous feats of mother nature" have been observed"  
"ok " Sam said, "So we head to Mt Mckinley. Everyone pack up!" The group went their separate ways. Sam and Myka walking back to their rooms to get bags packed. Sam stopped at His room and turned to look at Myka who stopped and waited quietly like she always did. "So this is the big finish hm? All of this prep and training finally getting put to use?" Sam asked Myka. Myka smiled and patted Sam's chest with her hand. "you will do fine. You have improved your fighting skills a great deal since we first met. You have surprised even me and I know what you are capable of. You can actually hold your own against me for a few moments. And you and Dean together actually give me a great workout!" Myka gave him a teasing grin. Sam gave her a wry grin and said "i think i'll take that as a compliment."  
"so what are you planning on doing once this is over?" Sam continued. Myka looked at him for a moment, some emotion he couldn't name in her eyes. "well I still have my duties as weapons master at home. They were taken over by a very promising student of mine. He could fight me to a stand still repeatedly." Sam nodded, hiding the disappointment he suddenly felt at her leaving. Of course she had a life to get back to. She was here to save her world after all. He had admitted to himself a long time ago that he was falling for this girl. But he'd never gotten the chance to say anything and she didn't give any indication as to how she felt about him. Plus he was pretty sure she looked at him like a child anyway, being over five hundred years old. "boy, you and Dean are pieces of work." Sam thought to himself with some humor. "both of us fell for supernatural creatures that are old enough to be our ancestors."  
So Sam nodded, with a smile and started to go into his room. Myka sighed. "go for it pip squeek!" she heard her father say in her head. "there is a reason Crowley calls him moose you know."  
"get out of my head dad" she thought without rancor. Gabe just laughed and pulled away, pointedly making sure she knew it.  
"Of course, the court may need a royal embassy in this realm," Myka continued slowly. Sam turned around and looked at her, questions in his eyes. Myka smiled at him and took a step closer. "you know, just in case your particular skills were needed, or perhaps to keep an eye on things here, in case Serin escaped.." Sam wrapped his arms around Myka, pulling her into his room and kissing her. She kissed him back, just as fiercely and kicked the door shut behind her.  
"I think that would be a great idea, sam whispered against her mouth." His tongue flicked out and touched her lips, asking permission and she opened her mouth, touching her tongue to his. Packing could wait. Sam decided.  
Cas and Dean were visiting one of Deans more pleasant dreams, a memory of the Christmas that Sam gave him the amulet. Dean had told Cas of the 'samulet' with a laugh and Cas had wanted to see that memory so Dean had been 'forced' to relive the musical with Cas. (he would never admit to it to sam, but he enjoyed it more the second time around with cas at his side.) Cas was quiet after the musical and Dean began to worry. Maybe Cas was having second thoughts about loving him despite not being able to go to the point couples go. But Cas caught that thought and rounded on Dean with a growl. "never! Dean. There will never be second thoughts about how much I love you."  
Dean and Cas walked thru the park with the benches they liked so well. Dean was able to hold Cas's hand here and Dean did it as much as he could. It was corny, and opened the way for chick flick moments, but it was Deans dreams so why the hell not?  
Cas stopped at the benches and sat down. Dean sat next to him and they were quiet, just enjoying each others company. Dean was getting used to 'last night on earth' moments and huffed a little laugh at the thought. "I am strong enough to leave you now Dean." Cas said quietly. "Gabe has helped my grace re grow enough that I am strong enough to look for a new vessel." Dean looked over at Cas. "are you sure?" "how will I recognize you?" Dean asked, "how long will you be gone?" "Do you have one in mind?" Dean fired out the questions with out taking a breath. He felt worried now. What if the vessel says no?  
"Gabriel has found a potential vessel for me. This one is devout and we are sure we will get a yes." "is he, uh ...part of Jimmys line?" "no, This vessel is part of a line I didn't know about." Cas sighed, "Gabriel is sure that we will get a yes, But I must go tonight." Cas looked deep into Deans eyes. And took a deep breath. "Dean I would like to ask you permission to do something, but I will understand and respect your wishes should you say no." Dean looked at Cas suspiciously. He trusted the angel, sure. But Sammy had been explaining to Myka and Cas, thru him of course, the purpose of practical joking just last night. "You know Cas, to make a practical joke work, your not supposed to ask permission from said victim."  
Cas looked surprised than huffed a small laugh. "no Dean this is not a practical joke, though one day I wish to pull one on you." Dean laughed, "thanks for the warning" He took a deep breath, "ok  
Cas, do your worst, I give you permission." "but you do not know what I wish to do?" Cas said. Dean shrugged. "hell, I trust you." Cas looked at Dean and said. "close your eyes." Dean gave him another suspicious look and than closed his eyes. Dean felt nothing for a second, and started to wonder if Cas had disappeared on him. Than he felt warm lips on his. He jumped in his skin at the contact. Cas was kissing him! He clamped down on his emotions and thought, "this I can do!" His eyes were closed after all. And Cas was being gentle, plus Alastair had never done this. So Dean took a breath and Kissed back. He tilted his head just a bit and deepened his kiss, Cas still wasn't touching Dean with anything but his lips. With a moan, Dean reached out and placed his hands on either side of Cas's face, he felt the perpetual five o'clock shadow and decided at that point it didn't matter. He opened his lips and his tongue darted out to taste Cas's lips.  
Cas started at the touch of Deans tongue. He hadn't expected dean to move, let alone Kiss back. Cas opened his mouth and tentatively touched Deans tongue with his. He let Dean control the kiss now, and Dean began to really get into it. He scooted forward so that he was touching Cas, than stood them both up so they were chest to chest, never braking the kiss. Cass placed his hands on Dean's shoulders, his hand matching up with the scar and a shock went thru them, Cas moaned into Deans mouth and Dean nipped at Cas's lower lip. They broke the kiss hesitantly and Dean looked at Cas, not saying a word. After a few breaths Cas whispered, "I must go now Dean, But I will be back."  
Dean swallowed, still tasting Cas on his tongue. He nodded, feeling a pang in his chest at the words. He placed his forehead on Cas's and they stood there for a moment. And than Dean gave him another Kiss, just a chaste one, on the lips. "Please don't be gone long." he whispered. Cas looked at Dean solemnly and nodded. Than he was gone. And Dean Felt the emptiness for just a moment, Than he shook it off, Cas was coming back. Hopefully in another vessel. It may feel weird to hug another guy he'd never met. But it would be Cas inside. It would just take some getting used to. Dean wondered how Cas would look the next time he saw him.  
They left Thursday, early in the morning, It was dark still and quiet. Mother nature was still. Myka reached out for the earth magic that this world still had and was rewarded with love and an out pouring of power. Myka told Sam, "Gaia is with us and will help us as much as she can." Sam curled his arm around Myka and Dean drove in silence, but smiled in the rear view mirror at Sam. He was glad for Sammy. And this time, Dean thought, this time, sammy won't loose this one to a demon.  
It took a while to get to Mt McKinley and Dean ran in to get two rooms at the hotel, Teasing both of them about it while the rest of the group unpacked the car.  
"I hope you don't mind sharing a room with me Charlie" Dean teased as he handed Sam the key to one of the rooms. Sam punched him in the shoulder as Charlie wrinkled her nose at him. "if you snore, I will get ice water." Sam laughed out loud at that and told Dean "well I hope you like cold water." Charlie groaned.  
Ron watched as the four hunters got unloaded and went into their rooms. She had told him to prepare the town for the sealing ritual. It would destroy the town, but he didn't care. Ron had placed the crystals in the appropriate places and had just finished when he saw the impala drive up. After Crowley had been abducted and Abaddon had started looking for him, every demon of any rank, new of the impala if they hadn't already. He laughed darkly, there were a lot fewer impalas in the world now because of some over zealous demons.  
But, She had said to prepare the town, so what better way to prepare, (and follow the orders of a certain sigil on his skull). Than to let important people know where to pay homage to the Queen herself. He walked up to the door and placed a folded paper on the door and with a loud thunk, buried the hilt of a knife, (a regular one) in the door, holding the paper up. Than he disappeared.  
She watched as the stone was placed inside the sigil's, the demons that sacrificed themselves to move the stone were laying carefully in the circle, their blood mixing in the middle where the stone sat.  
the stone glowed with a dark power, the stone almost completely turned from granite to obsidian now. She touched the stone tenderly and the energy inside reached out to her, recognizing her as its queen, its mistress. Not a consciousness so much as almost a consciousness. There to do her bidding. And when she released it's power in the faye realm, darkness would fall and block out the sun completely. Then it would corrupt any elf it touched, twisting its soul to dark, making all of them her slaves. Light elves would be no more, to be corrupted and turned to dark. She could think of no better punishment for them. They looked down on her race as evil and abominations. So she would turn them into what they hated!.  
She laughed delightedly. And there was no one that could stop her, the angels that were left were all fighting and trying to get back to their "heaven" and the humans that believed were so few and far between and had no power! It was delightfully simple.  
The hunters that the demons feared, Winchester's they were called had been taken apart by two shifters with just one of her leech blades. They had lost their angel and hadn't been heard from since. The queen than paused. That was how fate worked though wasn't it. Just to be safe, she ordered Ron to enslave another twenty demons to stand guard just in case. "Also, Ron, I want some vampires and a few djinn. Just in case. Offer them the Winchesters as reward. They dont have to capture them, just make sure they stop them."  
Ron thoughtfully considered her request. He couldn't disobey her, that would get him killed, he was told not to contact the knight again, the last time he tried the spell. But, she didn't specify which demons he had to enslave. Ron found a young girl and slit her throat. He gathered the blood in a bowl and made a call.  
The loud thwack! Made the door bounce and when Dean looked up, he saw the tip of a dagger poking thru the door. He motioned charlie to get behind him and went to the door. He braced himself and opened it a crack. He didn't see anyone, but just to be safe he waited a moment and than stuck his gun out the door. Sam did the same thing beside him. When they saw nothing they looked back at the door and saw the hunting knife in the door tacking a folded piece of paper on the door.  
Sam looked at the knife suspiciously but didn't feel the wammy a leach blade would give. Dean and Sam looked at each other again. And Dean touched the hilt of the knife carefully, like you would something you thought might be hot. He shook his head, nothing. Sam gripped the handle and tried to pull it out. He ended up having to use all of his strength to do so.  
The paper fell onto the ground. Charlie picked it up and looked at it. Than handed it to Myka. "coordinates" Charlie said. They passed the note around. And went into Dean and Charlies room.  
"well someone knows we are here," Sam said. "ya think sammy?" Dean asked sarcastically. "its a trap" Charlie said. After no one had spoken for a while. "of course its a trap you ninnys!" a voice scoffed. They all whirled around to see Crowley standing at the door. Holding the knife. "one of my better demons." he said to the knife. "i had wondered where he went off to." Crowley shrugged, "oh well." and the knife disappeared.  
"Crowley?" Dean growled. "why don't you tell us what you meant by that so I can get to ganking you?" "well hello to you to squirrel, moose." Crowley said. "And here I come with information. Just like we agreed. Remember?" Crowley looked around. "Nice dig's really," he said sarcastically. "Crowley!" Sam barked. "oh all right." he looked at Myka, "kids these days, am I right? No pleasantries to speak of, no manners." Myka folded her arms and she just quietly glared. "wow! If looks could kill." Crowley held up his hands. "ive been given some insider information. And I'll have you know, im going to personally help you, well so to speak." Dean and Sam made a noise of disbelief. "What's in it for you?" Charlie asked, "well look at you! You look much more confidant than the last time I saw you. What's your secret, Baby spleen?" Crowley asked Charlie. She made a disgusted sound and face at him. He just laughed.  
"ok so here it is, those are real coordinates, but here is the catch, there are going to be twenty plus demons, me included, a few vamp nests and a djinn or two, not sure on the djinn since no one can seem to get them to work together." Crowley grinned at the expressions on the groups face. "they have been offered a chance at you two. All they have to do is stop you. Very tempting offer if I do say so myself."  
"So what's stopping you?" Dean growled out. "why are you warning us?" Crowley pointed at Myka. "her so don't go thinking you are special or anything. I'ts not some hold over of humanity or anything sappy like that." Crowley gave Sam puppy dog eyes. "sorry moose" Sam just gritted his teeth and shifted. "i hold up my bargains and the deal I made with her supersedes any spell or other deal. Plus she scares the bejeezes out of me. You don't even give me the willeys."  
"So that's it! Ta ta! See you at the final showdown." "oh ya, you may need these too." with that Crowley disappeared. And a bag appeared where he stood.  
"well," Dean said. "can we trust him?" Sam asked. "nope" Dean and Charlie said together. "But I do think he's telling the truth." Dean finished.  
Myka went and picked up the bag and dumped it out on the table, four identical pendents fell out with runes on them. Myka looked at the other three for a moment and picked them up. She felt for Gaia's presence and cast a spell to identify the pendants with earth magic.  
As Sam and Dean and Charlie watched, Myka's hand glowed white than turned to gold. She opened her eyes as the color faded and Sam was struck with how non human she really was. She held one out to each of them and put one on herself. "what are they?" Dean asked as Sam put his on. "they are for protection from some kind of demon, but I don't know what. However he gave them to us for a reason and I do know they won't hurt us."  
Dean and Charlie placed their pendents on and Dean swore he smelt dog.  
Gabriel came back after scouting the coordinates that they were given. "She's there alright." Gabe said, "and so are the demons, vamps and djinn Crowley promised. Crowley is there as well."  
"if we are going to do this," Myka said. "It has to be tonight, its in the middle of the lunar cycle and that granite key has to be placed while the stone is in the middle of this cycle, its the only time its not on guard."  
Dean and Sam Sighed, of course it had to be night. "Well we have about seven hrs till dark, how bout some pizza while we wait." Dean suggested since it had been forever since they had eaten. So Myka and Sam went out to get pizza. "and Pie, I cant fight properly with out pie." Dean had said as they left. "when have I ever forgot pie dean." Sam sighed as they went out the door.  
They left at dusk and arrived at then entrance to the valley half an hour after night fall. Gabe was playing lookout from the top, showing Myka "the birds eye view." gabe said with a wink. The benefits of Myka being his daughter was the bond they shared. Dean was really missing Cas right about now, they could have used another fighter. Plus, well he just missed him.  
"Ok,!" Myka whispered as they made there way to the center where a huge thrum could be heard. "here comes the first wave." Than it was fighting, there was over a hundred vamps and who knows how many djinn. After the first panicked thought, Sam and Dean fell right into the training Myka had given them. And before they knew it, there was a pause. And silence. Charlie had stayed with Gabe and was also playing watch, and protecting Gabes' back.  
They had figured out early on that while Charlie was good at protecting herself from a few baddies at a time, (like two) she was better at the magic part so she was sitting at Gabes feet chanting a mixture of angel and elven spells that her and the Royal Alchemist had mixed together to keep them hidden.  
They had made it about a thousand feet before the roar hit them. Than the wind. Dean and Sam looked around and saw a familiar sight that brought them up short and they both felt their hearts sink to their feet. It was a cloud of demons. And it was so much larger than the one that escaped from the devils trap all those years ago. Or the one at the jail. The guys gripped their be-spelled blades and stiffened their spines, they had their tattoo's and apparently elf/angel hybrids couldn't be possessed. That wasn't their worry.  
Myka swore softly under her breath. This was going to be a challenge for her. Let alone for her guys. They had done so well, she was proud of them. They fought thru hundreds of vamps and several dozen djinn with ease when fifty vamps almost killed them before she had trained them.. She looked at Sam and their eyes locked as the Demons landed and took forms given to them by the Queen. "I have grown very fond of you Sam Winchester" she thought to him. "i hope we will be able to continue this relationship when this is done." His face showed his surprise at hear her in his head. Than he tried to tell her how much he cared. It was sloppy and almost painful for her, but she smiled to show she had got it.  
Dean's heart sank. Well, perhaps Cas would visit him in heaven than. But he wasn't going out without a fight. He watched Sam and Myka and decided if anyone was going to survive it was Sam. As usual. He couldn't have a proper relationship with the one person he loved. By god sam was going to.  
Besides, they had been taught how to fight by the weapons master of the light elves. Dean raised his chin defiantly and took a deep breath... and smelled a horrible smell that made his blood run cold. He knew that smell. Than, above the roar of the demon cloud. He heard growling. A sound he hadn't heard since Sam started his trials. And something he hoped never to hear again. He looked beside him and Saw, he actually saw three hell hounds standing beside him. "Oh hell" he whispered in fear. He looked at sammy and saw him frozen and looking at his other side. Three more were beside him and Myka.  
"Well sammy, this looks like the end." Dean whispered to his brother. They both knew that you only saw a hell hound with out glasses if they were after you. Sam looked at Dean and nodded. "fight well dean, we'll find our way back to each other." Sam replied in the traditional elf pre battle saying that Myka had taught them. Than they put their backs together as the hell hounds advanced, growling. Dean waited for the attack. When it didn't come his eyebrows came together in confusion. "why are they just standing there dean" Sam asked quietly so as not to provoke them. Dean looked at the one ugly sob in front of him and it snorted and pawed the ground. "whats it waiting for?" Dean asked. Than he felt something under his shirt. He realized it was hot. But not quite enough to burn. It wasn't indigestion like he had thought. He looked at the Demons in front of him and saw Crowley standing at the head of the line, with a smirk on his face. Dean looked at the hell hounds and than back at Crowley who nodded almost imperceptibly. "the amulets!" Dean hissed. "these guys are working for us!" Dean felt his brother take a quick breath and than Crowley yelled an order.  
The boys met the wave of demons, swords crashing and the hell hounds surged forward fighting along side them. They didn't attack Crowley of course, Dean saw an amulet glowing under his shirt. And snorted.  
After a while Dean and Sam were numb. They were moving on instinct and after an eternity, there was just them left and they found themselves in front of the huge stone. It was pulsating and humming and they finally saw, standing beside it, dwarfed by the massive stone. An elf, with red hair. Kept in a single braid down her back, violet eyes glowing and pulsating with the stone. Well Princess," She said. " I see you have trained them well." She looked down at the four remaining hell hounds that prowled around them snarling. "even you could not have tamed those beasts. There is a traitor in my midst." She muttered a word and two of them yelped and exploded, showering The three of them with demon blood. Dean muttered "gross" and wiped his face.  
"But its no matter, I will kill you myself and than simply finish here." "its five against one short stuff" Dean said. "What are you gonna do, Talk us to death?" Sarin's face became ugly with rage, "How dare you speak to me in that tone human!" She yelled out in a language they didn't know and two large stone goloms appeared. Eight feet tall at least and twice as wide as they were. "she smiled evilly. Those swords you had the dwarfs make don't to enistif against stone goloms! Have fun children!"  
They backed up slowly, and Dean asked Myka. "any idea's?" Myka simply said. "Dad's working on it. Just don't get killed." The boys nodded and than one of the hell hounds lunged and a golom back handed it across the clearing. It landed with a yelp and didn't move. Sam and Dean looked at each other. "that's not good" Sam muttered. And than they were too busy avoiding stone hands to talk.  
"there is a weakness in them." Gabriel said to Myka. "You must hit the spot at the base of the neck. A and fist will do it, but its the size of a orange." Myka dodged and rolled as the one came after her. She jumped up and grabbed the head of the golom flipped over its shoulder. She took the base of her sword and hit what she hoped was the spot. The golom grabbed her by the leg and flung her down. She hit the ground flat on her back. She laid there stunned for a moment and the golom raised both fists up in the air, She heard Sam yell her Name and closed her eyes. She tried to catch her breath and force her self to roll to one side.  
Than the golom stopped. And a crack appeared, than more until finally it shattered raining pebble size granite all over the place. Myka gasped out, "the base of the neck." and passed out.  
Sam watched helplessly as Myka was about to be crushed by the rock golom. He yelled out "no! Myka get up!" Dean was on his side, gasping for air. He had crushed ribs and knew it. Based on the feel, probably a punctured lung. Sam got up from where he had been thrown, limping on a sprained ankle. When the golom stood dead still, than shattered.  
Dean heard Myka yell out something about the neck. And told Sam with a gasp. Sam remembered where Myka had been and decided that some how hitting the back of the neck was a weak spot. Sam ran up and slid on his knees between the goloms legs and rolled up onto his feet. He jumped up onto the goloms back, wrapping his arm around its throat and hit the neck. The golom reached back and grabbed Sam by the back of his neck and threw him. He hit the ground and didn't get up. "Sam!" Dean rasped out. Unable to do more. Even though he new it was pointless, He pulled out his gun and emptied the clip out in it in rage.. The golom came over and reached down to grab Dean, who stared definitely at it, then, it stopped. A crack appeared and it shattered. Behind the golom stood a strange woman holding an angel sword.  
Dean stared. "Where in the world did this chick come from?" She stood tall for a woman, Dean guessed if he was standing she would reach his chin. Long legs, clad in black boots, jeans and a t shirt that said "I got your back" with stick figures on it. One was holding the other one's back. A blue hoodie and.. Dean looked at the girl's face. Black hair down to her waist and the bluest eye's he had ever seen. Sky blue, he thought dumbly as he stared. She was fit, and looking at him with a small familiar looking barely there smile. She cocked her head to the side and said, "hello Dean." "Nice voice," Dean thought first. "not to high pitched, kinda husky, seductive even." Than it dawned on him. "Cas?!" he squeaked. And winced, he had squeaked.  
"Cas look out!" Dean tried to yell. Serin came up behind the angel with a blade in her hand. Cas moved gracefully out of the way and hit her in the nose with a quick jab. Cas than came over to Dean and touched his head. The pain was gone. Dean was better. He got up quickly and picked up his swords and Cas trotted over to Sam to heal him as well. Sam was struggling to come to. He knew Dean was in trouble, so was Myka. His whole body hurt so bad. Sam tried a second time to get to his feet when he felt a hand brush his forehead. The pain was gone. Sam blinked a few times as his brain caught up with his pain receptors.  
He looked up into.. Some woman's blue eyes. "What is it with mysterious women saving our asses lately" he asked himself. Than the women turned her head to the side just like.. "Cas?" Sam asked in an incredulous tone. "dean needs our help sam, we will talk later." Cas got up and helped Sam to his feet. "right. ya." He looked around and saw Myka standing up as well.  
The four of them faced Sarin together. "I will not let you! Mere humans ruin months of work!" She shrieked, finally loosing her temper. She raised her arms to the sky and the wind started whipping around them. Storm clouds came out of no where and lightning was striking the ground on a regular basis.  
She hollered out some words and Dean threw his silver etched, iron edged blade at her. With out even stopping her chant, Dean was thrown to the ground and held there, the knife halfway between them, on the ground where it had hit some kind of force field.  
"as long as she has control of the stone, she cannot be touched!" Myka screamed into the wind. Sarin laughed out loud. "You are beaten halfbreed!" Sarin screamed in triumph.  
"That's my daughter your insulting" They heard behind Serin. She whipped around in shock and Gabriel thrust his angel blade into her chest and twisted. "I really resent that word!" Serin let out a choked gargle as blood started to pour out of her mouth.  
Charlie peeked around the Stone at that point and waved, her hand on the granite plug that they had left with her so she could sneak in and place it unseen. She looked very nervously at the hell hound that was guarding her. "hm she got one to" Dean mused to Sam, "ya I guess who ever got the amulet got a hell hound or two."  
"and ill just be taking those back now if you don't mind thank you!" a cheerful Crowley said as he waved his hand and they were hanging from his closed fist. The two remaining hell hounds came over to him and sat at his feet, drooling what looked like lava to dean. "Thank you for taking care of that little problem. And I'll see you blokes around!"  
With a wave, Crowley and the hell hound were gone.  
Back in the throne room Crowley was looking at a very damaged Demon. "so you cant leave your vessel and your stuck serving some elf knight or something hmm? And you want me to remove the sigil's?" "I did everything I could to help destroy the bitch queen my King," Ron said. "It would be a fitting reward to free me so I could serve you again." "don't presume to tell ME what a FITTING reward would be you blithering idiot!" Crowley waved and two demons came forward. "you were the one that got caught in the first place! I told you to make a deal! Not become a slave!" Chains appeared on Rons wrists, "take him to Alastair's old chambers and let his replacement see what he can do about taking off those marks" Crowley told the demons and waived them off. Ron disappeared down a tunnel screaming already for mercy.

The group packed up and headed back to the bunker as the sun broke over the tree's. After much debate, it was decided to leave the stone where it was. The power that it had collected had dissipated harmlessly into some dimension and joined the rest of the energy of creation where it had originated from before it became souls and essence. Gabe and Cas understood it but the rest just took their word for it.  
Cas for his part was exhausted. Gabe had warned him against trying to use to much of his newly growing essence to soon but he couldn't let Dean and Sam die. Gabe assured a worried Sam and Dean that Sleep and rest was all the angel needed. Lots of it.  
Dean sat in the back with Cas on the way to the bunker. Sam drove with charlie and Gabe took Myka back via angel taxi. Gabe had said something about wanting to have some father/daughter time, to which Myka rolled her eyes and whisper to Sam that he wanted to grill her about her decision to stay with him. To which Sam positively glowed, much to Deans amusement.  
Cas fell asleep leaned up against Dean in the back. Sam kept meeting Deans eyes in the mirror. Dean for the most part stayed still with his arm around Cas and just stared at the beautiful Girl that Cas was in. Dean wondered if Cas had chosen a female on purpose for him.  
" Its gonna be weird getting use to Cas looking like that" Sam said quietly. "yah." was all Dean said. They drove the rest of the day in silence.  
When they got back to the bunker, Gabe said goodbye, he was going back to the faye realm and see about making a son. To which the whole group groaned. "tmi Gabe, Tmi." Dean and Sam said together. He gave Myka a hug and a kiss and Gave Sam the "if you brake her heart" speech to which Sam and Myka both blushed.  
Charlie went back to Oz to help Dorthy some more and made Sam and Dean promise to take it easy. They agreed and told her of their plan to re start the men of letters and maybe some sort of hunter training place/the new bobby's.  
Later that night after every one had left and Sam and Myka had retired, Dean and Cas were left on the couch by themselves. After some comfortable silence, Dean turned so he was facing Cas. She/he looked at Dean quietly and waited. "so did you know this vessel was a girl before you left? Or did gabe kinda spring it on you? Tell me what happened man?"  
"I did not know Dean. Gabe did indeed 'spring it' on me." Cas took a deep breath. "She was dying of lymphoma due to exposure from being in Afghanistan. She had already made peace with dying when we showed up. I fully explained what I was and that I needed a new vessel. I asked her if she would mind if I took hers when she was done." Dean waited patiently. "Than Gabe spoke up." Cas sounded aggravated and Dean had to laugh. "he told her about how I was an a-sexual being of light that was in love with a mortal man that was doing gods work but my last vessel was male and thus 'incompatible' with our 'love story' " Dean could hear the air quotes while Cas talked. Cas looked at Dean with tears in her eyes and said. "She replied, far be it from me to put asunder what god has deemed needs to be, Of course you may have my shell good Castiel, I wouldn't have it any other way." Than she took a deep breath and Tessa came and took her to heaven." Dean's mouth dropped "tessa came and took her?" "yes and she said to tell you death approves by the way and sends his congratulations to us both." Cas said in an off handed 'by the way' tone of voice.  
Dean rubbed his hands over his face, bemused. It did seem like the universe seemed to want to see him and Cas together. And it was bending over backwards to help make it so.  
Dean looked at Cas again. "its gonna take some time to get used to seeing you like this, I have to admit it." Cas looked down and sighed. "yes these breasts keep getting in my way." She said in aggravation. "i keep bumping into things with them and.." Cas's voice faded away when he noticed Dean shaking uncontrollably. "are you Laughing at me Dean?" she asked in confusion.. Dean gained control of himself with difficulty. "ya cas I was, that's the first time i've heard a woman complain that her breasts were in the way."  
Cas looked at Dean, bemused. "you are taking this quite well, considering I was a man for seven years almost." Dean started laughing again. "lets just keep that between those of us that know what you really are, ok?" he said when he calmed down again. "boy bobby would have loved this one" dean muttered to him self. Cas huffed at him and snuggled down into him. "i do fit next to you quite a bit better now," she mused. Than she sat back up again and looked at him. "you seem to be a lot more comfortable with me so close to you now as well."  
Dean sighed. "would you think less of me if I said now that your a girl I do feel more comfortable with you like this?" Cas looked at him for a moment. Dean shifted away from Cas and began to with draw back into himself. "I know that it shouldn't make a difference, cas, and im sorry." Dean struggled with the next words. "I had accepted that I was going to get used to a new body. And I had assumed it was going to be male. Because I had come to think of you as male." he got up and began pacing, feeling awful about himself. "i had even come to the conclusion that I could try." he looked at cas. "try to be more intimate with you, that's why I kissed you back. To make myself move past what happened to me in hell. I knew it would take time and I would have to go slow."  
dean poured himself a double shot of whiskey from the decanter and downed it. "but I have to admit, as ashamed as I am to say it, seeing you in a chicks body.. I was so relieved I could cry." Dean sat down on the other end of the couch. Waiting for something. Some kind of comment telling him how awful it was that Dean couldn't accept cas the way he was, what a selfish, awful man he was because Cas was able to accept Dean the way he was.  
In stead Cas scooted over to where Dean sat and took his hands. Dean noticed idly how small they were now. Cas placed his Left hand onto Deans right shoulder and Dean gasped at the shock that went thru him.  
"you are not bad, you are not awful. The fact that I know what you went thru and yet you were willing to try for me, reminds me just how wonderful you really are. Dean look at me please."  
Dean looked up slowly, tears in his eyes. "I still love you Dean Winchester. I always will, and I will do anything to help you thru what ever you go thru. Including changing the sex of my vessel to make you more comfortable."  
Dean chuckled at that and wiped his eyes. Damn he has cried more in the last month or two than in his whole life. He looked at Cas sitting in front of him and said softly, " I love you to Castiel" Dean leaned down and gave his girl a kiss.

Death and God watched as the Winchesters save the world again. "how many times does that make?" Death asked, rhetorically. God shrugged. I think its time I return. There's gonna be a few ruffeled feathers soon, when the angels realize cas is in a working female body now. And that has consequences. I need to head that off at the pass. Just for a bit to make sure they know the Winchesters are off limits. They definitely deserve a nice easy remainder of their lives. Death looked at God and smiled. So we go back to normal, watching for the next thousand years or so until the next time Lucifer and Michael decide to go at it? Or the next apocalypse begins?" God smiled back. Well there are still the demons also, after about a thousand years or so, one of them trys the old fashioned method again.  
"Yes," mused Death "and Crowley wont last forever will he. Once he's gone, hell will fall apart"  
"So a wager than?" God asked. "how long will the balance last this time, one thousand years, or two.?" "one" said Death. And they smiled at each other, and parted ways...

"Dad! Dad! Dad! Are you awake?" "I am now Mary." Dean groaned as the six year old bounced up and down on the bed. And identical little girl quietly sat on her mothers side waiting patiently. "Jo beth? Would you like for us to get up as well?" Cas said in an amused voice. "yes please mama" the other six year old said with a grin. "very well go wake up your cousins while we go get your brother."  
With a squeal, the twins rushed out of the room to wake up there two cousins down the hall.  
Cas snuggled down next to Dean for a moment more before they had to get up. Dean looked down at her and kissed her lips softly. "how did I get so lucky that a bad ass angel fell in love with me and gave me three wonderful children?" he asked softly, love in his voice. "You saved the world righteous man, over and over again." Cas said as she kissed him back. Dean had long stopped thinking of Cas as 'he' especially since she had been in this vessel for ten years now. With a groan he said "I guess we better get up before they band together and drag us out kicking and screaming." Cas laughed softly and hugged Dean again. "I love you Dean." "I love you cas" he replied with a smile.  
They went and woke up little Adam together. It was his first Christmas so he was just happy to be around. The two made their way to the living room where the tree was full of presents. Sam and Myka came in right behind them rubbing sleep out of their eyes. "John, Gabriel, please sit on the couch and wait for the rest of us." Sam said sternly "Im sure Grandpa and Grand ma will be here soon."  
the smell of coffee wafted thru the living room as Gabriel and Alannaes appeared. "we have arrived!?"Gabriel announced. "with elvish coffee!" The adults in the room groaned thank you's while the kids all screamed in happiness that the family was all there.  
Alannaes took charge of the children while the adults arranged themselves to watch as the kids tore open presents and screamed thank you's. And hugs were given. It was over in moments and while the kids went off to play with their toys the adults exchanged gifts. Gabe and Alannaes gave both sets of parents an amulet for a vacation spot, sans children, on a remote island in the faye realm. And of course another year supply of elvish coffee. Sam and Myka both hugged Alannaes and Gabriel with relief. They loved their kids but two boys under seven where enough to ware anyone out, and it seems that elf/angel hybrids had tones of energy, and when you add human to the gene pool.. well. They could probably power the east coast. Dean and Cas were more subdued but just as grateful. Once gifts were done and messes cleaned. Breakfast was next.  
The girls were getting the kids settled when Sam pulled Dean aside to the office. "can you believe its been ten years and the world hasn't tried to self destruct once?" Sam asked Dean when they were alone. "I know! Cas and Gabe both say balance has been restored but they won't say by who." Sam looked at Dean and said "i have a theory,." Dean looked at Sam and waited patiently. "i think god came back," Dean choked on his coffee but looked thoughtful. "you know, that could explain why Cas wasn't worried about the angels coming after the twins and Adam. What with them being nephillim and all." They had both mellowed out quite a bit over the last decade. They had gotten the hunter academy set up. And now there was a network of hunters around the globe and they had all kinda stayed in touch. Even Crowley had kept the demons down stairs and hell in order. "that reminds me," Dean said. Sam looked up from the box he was holding. Dean pulled out the bottle of whiskey and the fruit cake they had put ribbons on. Sam grinned and pulled out the plywood with the spell painted on it,. They put the whiskey and fruit cake on the spell and chanted together a quick incantation. The drink and cake disappeared and the boys counted back from ten on their fingers.  
At one, on the dot, a thank you note appeared with a crude, rude saying on it. Addressed to squirrel and moose. Love Crowley.  
"who'd of thought when we first met the guy, that we would send him whiskey and cake every Christmas." Sam mused. "Ida shot you for thinking about it." Dean said with a laugh.  
"Dean" Sam said and stopped. "ya sam, whats up bro." dean said. "ive got another present for you." "Aww sammy you shouldn't have." Dean said with a grin as he reached for it. Sam pulled it back just a bit. "first I need to tell you something." Dean got quiet and listened with a nod.  
I've been waiting to give this to you for a while now. I just had to find the right time. I think now, after all we have been thru. And where we are now makes this the perfect time." I feel like we are closer than ever now. No more secrets. Just family. Like we should have been all along," Sam took a deep breath. "I hope you like it," he handed it to dean, hands shaking just a little. Dean noticed and gave Sam a long look. He opened it and looked down in the small jewelry box and gasped. "Sam, is this..." he stopped, throat closing as tears welled up in his eyes. Sam nodded mutely. "Sam, it's the best present I have ever had. Thank you." Dean put the old amulet he thought he had lost forever back over his head where it rested on his chest like it had never left. Dean pulled his little brother into a hug. And kissed the side of his head. "ill never throw it away again sammy." he whispered in sammys ear.  
Cas watched from the doorway with a smile as finally, after so many years. Dean and Sam's souls were finally healed. And only Cas noticed, as the amulet glowed with a soft heat.  
fin-


End file.
